Connecticut School Integration Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats
by Gary Orfield with Jongyeon Ee
April 2015
10th in a Series
Tables of Contents
Tables of Contents ...... 2 List of Figures ...... 3 List of Tables ...... 3 Acknowledgements ...... 4 Foreword ...... 5 Executive Summary ...... 7 Statewide ...... 7 Connecticut’s Metropolitan Areas ...... 8 Background and Context ...... 10 Racial and Ethnic Change in Connecticut ...... 20 Changes in Segregation ...... 24 Segregation by Poverty ...... 29 Multiracial and Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut ...... 31 Intergroup Contact in Connecticut’s Public Schools ...... 32 Why Segregation Matters ...... 37 Educational Outcomes in Segregated and Integrated Connecticut Schools Now...... 40 Racial Composition in Magnet Schools ...... 41 Metropolitan Trends ...... 44 Overall Trends in Metropolitan Areas...... 44 Multiracial and Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut’s Large Districts ...... 47 Intergroup Contact in Connecticut’s Large Districts ...... 51 Poverty Concentration in Connecticut’s Large Districts ...... 59 Major Accomplishments of the Sheff Remedies ...... 60 Conclusion and Recommendations ...... 62 State Level ...... 62 Local Level ...... 64 Educational Organizations and Universities ...... 65 The Courts ...... 66 Federal Level ...... 66 Concluding Thoughts ...... 67 Appendix: Segregation Statistics ...... 68
List of Figures Figure 1: Black Students in Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut, 1987-2013 ______25 Figure 2: Latino Students in Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut, 1987-2013 ______26 Figure 3: White Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, 1987-2013 ___ 27 Figure 4: Percentage of Racial Group in Multiracial Schools by Race in Connecticut, 1987-2013 ______28 Figure 5: Racial Composition of School Attended by Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, 2012-2013 __ 29 Figure 6: Exposure to Low-Income Students for Typical Racial Typical Student in Connecticut, 1997-2013 _____ 30 Figure 7: Schools Classified by Percent of Nonwhite Students, 1987-2013 ______31 Figure 8: White and Asian Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, 1997- 2013 ______35 Figure 9: Black, Latino, and American Indian Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, 1997-2013 ______36 Figure 10: Metropolitan Statistical Areas in Connecticut ______44
List of Tables Table 1: Public School Enrollment by Race, 1987-2013 ______22 Table 2: Schools Classified by Percent of Nonwhite Students in Connecticut, 1987-2013 ______31 Table 3: Black and Latino Students in Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut, 1987-2013 ______32 Table 4: White Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, the Northeast, and the U.S. ______32 Table 5: Black Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, the Northeast, and the U.S. ______33 Table 6: Asian Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, the Northeast, and the U.S. ______34 Table 7: Latino Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, the Northeast, and the U.S. ______34 Table 8: Exposure to Low-Income Students by Race, 1997-2013 ______36 Table 9: Evenness Measure of Racial Groups across All Public Schools and Within/Between School Districts ____ 37 Table 10: Pairwise Correlation between Graduation Rates and the Share of Each Racial Group ______41 Table 11: Pairwise Correlation between Academic Performance and the Share of Each Racial Group ______41 Table 12: Magnet and Non-Magnet Schools in Connecticut, 2007-2013 ______42 Table 13: Exposure to Each Racial Group and Low-Income Students in Magnet Schools and non-Magnet Schools, 2012-2013 ______43 Table 14: Public School Enrollment by Race in Metropolitan and Surburban Areas, 2007-2013 ______45 Table 15: Public School Enrollment by Race in Major Districts in Connecticut, 2012-2013 ______46 Table 16: Multiracial and Minority Segregated Schools in 2012-2013 ______48 Table 17: Low-Income Students in Multiracial and Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut’s Metropolitan Areas ______50 Table 18: Black and Latino Students in Minority Segregated Schools in Major Districts, 2012-2013 ______51 Table 19: White Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 ______53 Table 20: Black Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 ______54 Table 21: Latino Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 ______55 Table 22: Asian Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 ______56 Table 23: White/Asian Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 __ 58 Table 24: Black/Latino/AI Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 ______59 Table 25: Low-Income Students Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012- 2013 ______61
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 3 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the reviewers for sharing their expertise and providing helpful guidance, invaluable feedback, and continued support throughout our work on this report. In addition, we want to express our appreciation to staff of the Civil Rights Project/ Proyecto Derechos Civiles for their support and assistance. This report is the tenth in a series of 12 reports from the Civil Rights Project analyzing school segregation in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.
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Foreword
The Civil Rights Project has been documenting changes in the segregation of American schools throughout its 18 year history. The basic story has been one of increasing segregation of Blacks and Latinos by race and poverty and a strong relationship between the segregation and educational inequality. Since the early l990s the U.S. Supreme Court has been retreating on desegregation, court orders have been dissolved, and segregation has been steadily increasing after several decades of increasing desegregation for African American students, beginning with the civil rights changes of the l960s. Several years ago we decided to add to our national and regional reports and our special focus on California the first detailed examination of this issue in the states of the Eastern seaboard for many years. This report is the tenth in the series. It is the first to report any significant recent action to foster diverse schools. The unique story initiated by Connecticut’s Supreme Court is of great regional and national importance, not as a grand solution to a very deeply embedded problem but as an important example of what can be done through the wise use of choice programs with clear civil rights objectives and major educational innovations. This report does not, by any means, conclude that the task is complete in Connecticut but does find that it is well begun and that there are logical next steps that could deepen the gains. America is a metropolitan society where four out of every five residents live in metro areas and much of life and economic activity is organized on a metropolitan basis, but the great majority of our metros are divided into separate and unequal school districts sorted out by race and income of the residents. The worst educational opportunities are offered to the poor nonwhite residents of the most disadvantaged school districts and the best to the most affluent white areas. The Supreme Court was confronted with this dilemma forty years ago in Milliken v. Bradley, and decided that the rights to desegregated education ended at district boundaries. Since many central cities even then had overwhelmingly poor nonwhite school districts, this often meant that nothing could be done or that a court would have to implement a remedy bound to fail. In his dissent Justice Thurgood Marshall predicted that this would bake segregation deeply into the society and that it would eliminate the promise of Brown v. Board of Education for millions of students. Statistics for the last 40 years show that he was right. Since that fateful decision the only successful effort to produce a new legal framework to deal with the reality of metropolitan segregation took place in Connecticut. After the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision made it virtually useless1 to fight for metropolitan desegregation in the federal courts, lawyers began to look at state courts as a possible avenue in spite of the fact that state courts had rarely produced civil rights breakthroughs. The problems of metro fragmentation were particularly acute in Connecticut. Connecticut is basically a suburban state without a very large city but its metros tend to have a very old city at their core and a very fragmented suburban ring. The differences are extraordinary between some of the country’s poorest central cities and richest suburban rings. And the relatively small size of the metros means that the entire metro areas are smaller than some of the country’s leading individual districts, so scale was not a major barrier. It was not hard to imagine workable solutions if the courts could take the initiative. There was evidence from the few states
1 Except in extremely limited circumstances where it was possible to prove intentional suburban or state action causing the segregation. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 5 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles were city and suburban schools all operated together in a single district, that it could work to create a high degree of lasting integration and to gain community acceptance. And Connecticut had a progressive tradition of civil rights law. So it became the target in a large struggle to attack segregation by race and poverty. The Sheff case was a long struggle by a group of outstanding civil rights lawyers, plaintiffs and local residents who supported the change and those who worked with them. (I was a witness in the initial trial and learned a great deal about Hartford and the state’s schools and school policy and about the communities with the metro at the time). After a long wait, the Connecticut Supreme Court reviewed the massive record in the case and made some very important findings. The Court held that the state had an obligation to pursue integrated schools and that those rights extended beyond municipal boundaries. In fact, the state court found that a system of district boundaries that segregated students and made integration almost impossible were themselves in violation of the state constitution. But, it charged the legislature with coming up with a solution. What followed were modest initial steps and years of back and forth efforts to develop solutions that worked through choice process and to gain the resources to implement. The efforts have not eliminated segregation or ended racial achievement gaps but it is the only state in the Northeast that is going in a positive direction and it has created voluntary processes that have clearly reduced severe segregation in a time devoid of national leadership. This is a solid accomplishment that the state should be proud of and other states should look at as an example. But there is still much to do in completing this work, in dealing with major racial change outside the central cities, in making sure that all the choice systems in the state facilitate rather than undermine the process, especially a highly segregated and rapidly growing charter system, and in addressing the large issues of social and economic inequality and housing segregation outside the schools. I believe that this long and often frustrating process has produced creative and positive models of integrated schools with exceptional programs, a win-win solution that has added important educational options and crossed barriers of race and class in a mutually beneficial way. Now it is time to build on success and complete the job. Looking at the grim picture of central city Hartford and Bridgeport when this process began and considering the odds against the creation of new models in a time when civil rights were shrinking, what has been accomplished is a victory over great odds. It is also an example of the way there can be change that expands the possibilities for all and enriches the communities. This report, unlike the others we have recently published is one of significant but still partial accomplishment. There is something strong and important to be built upon and worthy of consideration by other states.
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Executive Summary
This report analyzes the data on changes in patterns of racial segregation and their education consequences over a quarter century, from l987 to 2012. It examines a major transition in the racial and ethnic composition of Connecticut and the changes in integration and segregation in the schools of the state and its urban communities and it examines the relationship between the racial composition of the schools and the educational consequences. It shows that, in contrast to its neighbors, Massachusetts and New York, Connecticut has made significant progress in reducing segregation as a result of the implementation of the Connecticut Supreme Court’s decisions in the Sheff case and the programs that have been devised and implemented by the state’s educators. Basic findings include: Statewide The white share of the total public school enrollment dropped in the state from 76.8% to 59.9% between 1987 and 2012 while the Latino and Asian share increased substantially as was happening across the U.S. The proportion of Latino students more than doubled, rising from 8.8 to 20.1% over the last twenty-five years. The basic story is that fewer white children were born and the population change reflected the large immigrations to the U.S. from Latin America and Asia. The change did not reflect a surge of black enrollment.
The overall share of African American and Latino students who attended intensely segregated schools (90-100% minority schools) and apartheid schools (99-100% minority schools) decreased. There was a significant drop in extreme segregation.
The share of students living in poverty nearly doubled over the last fifteen years from 19.5% to 36.2%, also reflecting national trends. In 2012, the typical African American student attended a school with 63.1% poor students, but the typical white student had 22.3% classmates from low-income families. Segregation was double segregation for students of color.
Educational outcomes were clearly related to segregation. The overall graduation rate was positively correlated with the proportion of white and Asian students but was negatively linked with the black and Latino share in a school. Academic performance showed the same pattern. This was related to many historic and contemporary inequalities associated with race and ethnicity in U.S. society. The report summarizes a half century of research on the benefits of integration.
Connecticut’s magnet schools showed great potential of promoting racially integrated schools. In 2012-2013, magnet schools in Connecticut enrolled a more balanced number of students from each racial group (e.g., 30.2% whites, 31.4% blacks, 30.5% Latinos, and 4.4% Asians) as compared to non-magnet schools, which enrolled 61.7% whites, 11.6% blacks, 19.5% Latinos, and 4.8% Asians. Additionally, the typical student of each racial group in Connecticut’s magnet schools attended a similar percentage of low-income students, ranging from 49% to 59%; however, there were noticeable racial disparities in contact with poor students in non-magnet schools from 21% to 62%. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 7 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Connecticut charter schools are far more segregated than traditional public or magnet schools. Connecticut’s Metropolitan Areas Metropolitan areas included 49.2% of the total enrollment of the state’s public schools and their white share of public school enrollment was falling, while the proportion of Latino students increased.
There were substantial differences in racial composition across major districts in CT.
Connecticut’s large school districts had many multiracial schools, which enrolled at least three different racial groups (over 10% for each group). For example, all schools in the Stamford, Norwalk, Stratford, Manchester, and West Haven school districts were multiracial schools in 2012-2013.
All schools in the Bridgeport, Stamford, Hartford, New Britain, East Hartford, and Meriden school districts had more than half minority students. Over half of schools in the Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven school districts were intensely segregated (90- 100% minority), and nearly one-eighth schools in the Hartford school district were apartheid schools (99-100% minority schools).
A large proportion of African American and Latino students were still segregated in some districts. In the Hartford school district, 73.6% of Latinos and 65.4% of blacks were enrolled in intensely segregated schools in 2012-2013. The Bridgeport school district, too, had 64.7% of Latinos and 61.0% of blacks in 90-100% minority schools. In Hartford 8% of Latino students and 17% of black students attended apartheid schools (99-100% minority schools).
Virtually all students in minority segregated schools in the Bridgeport, Hartford, and Enfield school districts were poor in 2012-2013.
The levels of exposure to white and Asian students varied substantially across the large school districts examined. For example, the typical white student in the Westport school district attended a school with 92.8% white and Asian students, while the typical Latino student in the Bridgeport school district had 10.8% white and Asian classmates. In contrast, the typical white student in the Westport school district had merely 5.6% black, Latino, and American Indian (AI) classmates, whereas the typical Latino student in the Bridgeport school district attended a school with nearly 90% blacks, Latinos, and AIs.
Differences in intergroup contact between white/Asian students and black/Latino/AI students stemmed mainly from between-district segregation, not from within-district segregation. The different levels of exposure to each group were related to the overall share of racial groups in individual districts, which differed widely from district to district.
In its conclusions the report finds that Connecticut has made real progress since the Sheff decision and developed effectively methods to foster significant integration across school district lines in marked contrast to its major neighboring states. The report concludes with Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 8 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
recommendations on how to build upon and extend these efforts and other methods to take the next steps in attacking the serious remaining problems.
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Background and Context
Connecticut is a rich, overwhelmingly white, largely suburban, state. The state, with the second highest average household income in the nation and one of the very highest education levels, is characterized by extreme inequality; it contains some of the nation’s most depressed and troubled central cities near some of the most prosperous and highly educated suburbs. It is a state where all of the growth in enrollment is nonwhite, as it is in the U.S. totals. Like New England as a whole, it has been experiencing dramatic growth in its proportion of Latino and Asian students for decades and a significant decline in the share of whites. The African American community is long-standing and very important in some sectors of the state. The patterns of racial change are most clear in the central cities and in a growing list of diverse and racially changing suburbs. Connecticut, like the rest of New England is whiter than the U.S. average but changing significantly. Some suburban sectors, like those across the U.S., are now experiencing substantial changes in as they become more diverse or less affluent, or both, deepening inequality among suburbs as well as the long-standing polarization between suburbs and the cities. Segregation was not a very visible problem in most of Connecticut for many years. Although the state was warned about the potential problems by a 1965 Harvard study, Schools for Hartford2, and the state itself adopted some policy objectives, nothing much was done in the increasingly impoverished and deteriorated central cities until there was a major court battle. There was no Federal legal mandate for school desegregation outside the South until 1973 and when it came it was complex and expensive to get a remedy and the Supreme Court quickly limited desegregation plans by drawing a harsh legal boundary between city and suburban school districts making it nearly impossible to desegregate central cities that were already largely nonwhite and poor and changing rapidly. The l973 Keyes v. Denver School District No. 13, decision held that if civil rights lawyers could prove intentional segregation in a significant part of a city they could win a city wide desegregation order, but it came too late for many Northern cities where there were few white middle class students left in the big cities by then. The 1974 Milliken v. Bradley4 decision on metropolitan Detroit held that the suburbs could not be included in a plan unless there was proof that each suburb had intentionally discriminated. Since many suburbs were still almost all-white and the Court ignored the history of housing discrimination, both public and private, that kept them that way, the net result was to tell urban black and Latino communities that they had a right to a remedy for a history of desegregation but to forbid the only workable remedy, a remedy which worked well in Southern areas were the city and the suburban ring were in one county-wide school system. The CT state government did have a modest desegregation policy under the Racial Imbalance Act but it was not enforced in the state’s big cities. Unusual among state educational leaders Commissioner Gerald Tirozzi, spoke out strongly on the need for state action, and the
2 Harvard Univ. Graduate School of Education, Center for Field Studies, Schools for Hartford, 1965, 3 Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1,413 U.S. 189 (1973). 4Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S 717 (1974). Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 10 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles state department generated an important report but it did not lead to substantial changes.5 The federal government investigated segregation in the small Waterbury district and the state legislature debated a policy for Connecticut in 1969 a year after the assassination of Martin Luther King and the wave of urban upheavals that followed it. There were proposals for regional magnets and “educational parks” bringing together the students from several neighborhoods but they went nowhere. Eventually a modest Racial Imbalance Act was passed, far less demanding than the law of the same name enacted in Massachusetts. The state delayed eleven years until l980 to issue any regulations implementing it. The eventual regulation were limited to individual districts and set a very broad requirement that the minority-white ratio in a school not be more than 25% above or below the regional total.6 In a district with 80% black students or white students that meant nothing since 0% of the other race would be within the ratio, as would a 99% black school. It only mattered to smaller districts that had some real racial diversity. Connecticut elected officials never confronted the basic issue in the state, which was - segregation among districts in metro areas, not within the overwhelmingly nonwhite and poor central city systems. The serious segregation within Connecticut is among districts within metropolitan areas not inside individual districts, which often are overwhelmingly white or nonwhite. The Hartford area had one of the nation’s pioneering voluntary metropolitan desegregation plans, Project Concern, a small voluntary plan begun in the Hartford area in 1966 and involving a few hundred students from the city attending suburban schools. It continued into the mid-1990s and was later revived as part of the remedy in Sheff. It had only a very modest impact on the region’s severe segregation but it was the site of important early sophisticated research documenting significant positive impacts from access to suburban schools. The studies showed major benefits for the students receiving the opportunities compared to a random sample of similar students who did not. Integration in Connecticut was particularly hurt by the U.S. Supreme Court’s l974 Milliken v. Bradley decision which limited the desegregation in Detroit to the city itself, even though there was ample evidence of discrimination in Detroit, which had a small and rapidly declining white minority of students, and ignored the rest of the metro which had one of the nation’s most hyper-segregated housing markets.7 After this decision older central cities with majorities of poor minority students and a rapidly declining white minority could not achieve beneficial and lasting desegregation plan through federal litigation. Although it would have been very viable to include the entire metro region in a plan in middle sized metros like those in Connecticut (as was done in a number of similarly sized Southern metros with county school systems) it was impossible to accomplish through a federal court after the Milliken decision. In fact, a pending lawsuit for regional desegregation in Connecticut, Lumpkin v. Meskill, was dropped after the Milliken decision. Faced with this roadblock in federal court, some of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations decided to pursue a solution under state law and chose Connecticut as a location to
5 Connecticut. State Dept. of Education. Committee on Racial Equity. A Report on racial/ethnic equity and desegregation in Connecticut's public schools.1988. 6 Christine Dempsey, “What to Do with Racial Imbalance,” Hartford Courant, Jan. 8, 1969. 7 Joyce A. Baukgh, The Detroit School Busing Case: Milliken v. Bradley and the Controversy over Desegregation, Lawrence: Univ. of Kansas Press, 2011: Paul R. Dimond, Beyond Busing: Inside the Challenge to Urban Segregation, Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, l985. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 11 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles work with parents and community groups opposing segregation and inequality in the case that became Sheff v. O’Neill, first filed in l989.8 (Though a state constitution cannot override federal law state constitutions can provide rights that go beyond those provided by federal law.) The fact that there were feasible remedies in a relatively progressive state with relatively small metro areas encouraged the effort. The massive case attacked the intense segregation and inequality both by race and by poverty in the state, claiming that these forms of double segregation were a fundamental denial of the educational and civil rights provisions of the state constitution and that the state had failed to equalize resources or provide a minimally adequate education to all. After a lengthy trial and an appeal to the state supreme court the lawyers representing the segregated Latino and African American students in Hartford won a significant victory in the State Supreme Court in l996 which established a sweeping principle. The Court held that “racial and ethnic segregation has a pervasive and invidious impact on schools” and that it was a violation of rights created in the Connecticut constitution. The court’s majority held that the separation of students caused by school district boundary lines was a violation of rights in the state constitution. But, rather than prescribing a remedy the Court ordered the governor and the legislature to come up with a solution. This was similar to the strategy of the Supreme Court for the first decade following the Brown decision, a decade in which the principle of desegregation was established but little desegregation was achieved. The political leaders of Connecticut did not propose to merge and desegregate the school districts or offer any other major remedy. In fact, the first substantial response of the Connecticut legislature was an increase of funding for preschool education, a good thing in itself but hardly related to desegregation. Eventually a modest desegregation plan was developed and applied to the state’s largest metropolitan areas and it grew over time. It was very small until the state agreed to a settlement in 2003 which created some goals and timetables and workable mechanisms to operate the plans, a process that led to continuous expansion. It relied on voluntary inter-district transfers and on the creation of regional magnet schools drawing students across district lines to enroll in special educational programs. Many students remained segregated but, with time, the plans did have a significant impact. Experience under the plans demonstrated that it was possible to create regional schools so great many residents of all races would be eager to cross district lines to enroll in them. In fact, the demand surpassed the willingness of the state to pay for them so a moratorium was placed on this successful effort except in the Hartford area. The voluntary demand for these good, integrated educational choices is a very important fact. There continue to be discussions between the Sheff plaintiffs and the state about further expansions. The Educational Policy Discussion. Connecticut has a strong overall level of educational achievement but the state has the largest gap in achievement by race in the U.S. Connecticut, like the rest of Southern New England, faces s future being formed by immigrants and the children of immigrants. These are immigrants who do not come from Ireland or Italy as they did a century ago, but from Latin America and Asia. This demographic change is being superimposed on a polarized economy and society, historically overwhelmingly white but with an old and very unequal black community. It is a state where the sophisticated industrial jobs in the first part of
8 For a powerful introduction to the realities of schooling in Hartford and the struggle in the Sheff case see: Susan Eaton, The Children in Room E-4, Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2006. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 12 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles the country in heavy industry have been replaced by jobs requiring advanced education as well as many dead-end entry level and part-time jobs for those with little education. It is a state with very dramatic differences between once-rich but now deeply decayed central cities, some flourishing affluent suburbs, and others facing change and an uncertain future. During its many years with a small African American minority, Connecticut let its small racial problems grow and become institutionalized. They were not solved. Now there is a more complex multiracial puzzle to resolve. Connecticut is a state of huge racial differences in academic success but whose leaders tend to ignore race in their analysis of the problems. The Connecticut Commission on Educational Achievement, a group of business and foundation leaders, concluded in its 2010 report that the state had the nation’s largest achievement gap between low income and higher income students. Although the state as a whole was a national leader on educational achievement, poor children performed even worse than poor children in much of the rest of the country, though the vast majority of other states were poorer and spent far less on their schools. There was also a huge gap in high school graduation rates between poor and non-poor children. The gap was not the product of a handful of low achieving districts but existed across the state. Connecticut has had challenging standards and substantial funding but gaps among groups in reaching the state’s standards were gigantic. Although poverty is strongly related to race and children of color are very much more likely to be concentrated in high poverty low-performing schools, this important report totally ignored the issues of race and school segregation. It set a goal of totally eliminating the achievement gap in ten years, much like the failed goals of the Clinton-Bush Goals 2000 policy in the l990s and the No Child Left Behind goals set in 2001, but there was no analysis of why those goals had failed decisively in the past. The solutions the report suggested were very similar to the means adopted in state reforms and in the NCLB and the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top reforms that failed to produce significant progress toward this objective.9 Extreme differences in communities by race, class, and segregation, obvious to anyone who attentively drove across any metro area in the state or examined its statistics, were simply ignored in most of these reports. If education is posed as the answer to inequality, how is a gap to be closed when the children whose families and neighborhoods have the fewest resources, who are largely black and Latino, attend the schools with the least prepared classmates, the least experienced faculty and administrators, and the least prepared fellow students. The prevailing theory of the last thirty years is that it can be done by enacting higher standards in the states and in Washington and threatening schools with sets of sanctions, threats, and more competition from charter schools. Unfortunately these remedies leave the students most in need of strong schools in weak schools with the least experienced teachers and the worst educated peer group and the most privileged students in communities with successful schools with the strongest schools and the most academically prepared classmates and teachers, the same communities which often have many strong out-of-school educational experiences which supplement educational opportunities.
9 Connecticut Commission on Educational Achievement, Every Child Should have a Chance to be Exceptional, Without Exception, CCeA, 2010. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 13 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
The Connecticut Council on Educational Reform was created in 2011, with strong backing of corporate leaders. They took hard looks at the strengths and weaknesses of Connecticut’s school systems and strongly advocated various accountability reforms, preschool education, teacher accountability and other issues. In its 2012 report, the Council notes that its mission was to “represent the business and civic voice in facilitating the implementation of comprehensive reforms to significantly narrow Connecticut’s achievement gap while raising academic outcomes for all students.”10 The Council’s website asks “Why Connecticut has the largest achievement gap in the U.S?” noting that “In Connecticut we have some of the wealthiest towns in the country as well as some of the poorest. This disparity in income contributes to the achievement gap. But it is not all a result of income differences.” The report observes that the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress11 shows that in spite of Connecticut’s position as a national leader in overall student achievement “when compared to low-income students from other states, Connecticut’s low-income students score in the bottom third on some key assessments.”12 The report, however, says nothing at all about race and its relationship to poverty and unequal segregated schools. The document ignores the successful efforts in Connecticut to alleviate the very low scores in poor schools segregated by race and poverty through voluntary transfers and regional magnet schools. This has been a large blind spot in the corporate and foundation funded reform movements across the U.S. Although these reports strongly urge using all possible means to correct what they acknowledge to be deeply damaging gaps, they ignore the underlying sources of unequal opportunity as well as the successes achieved in schools integrated by race and class. In its January 2015 agenda for the legislature, the Connecticut Council on Educational Reform noted continuing needs and put strong emphasis of funding, preschool, of accountability and moving toward measurement of teachers and teacher accountability and state takeovers of failing schools. No mention of Sheff and successes that had been widely recognized.13 Another education reform group, the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, pointed out in November 2014 that almost 40,000 students were still locked into failing schools, about nine-tenths of them African American and Hispanic and nine-tenths poor. It pointed to the huge demand for the regional magnet schools and a substantial waiting list for charter schools and called for an expansion of choice programs.14 Looking at the findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) the independent national test administered by the Educational Testing Service that compares all the states, the racial differences are very stark. In the 2011 assessments, Connecticut produced the highest black-white gap in reading proficiency at the fourth grade level. The Hispanic-white gap was also the nation’s largest (tied with Massachusetts for this distinction.).15 After the 2009 national comparison of 12th graders, the state’s overall ranking was high but Commissioner Mark McQuillan noted that inequalities continued throughout the grades and that there were
10 2012 Education Policy and Progress Report, p. 5. 11 The NAEP, the only national comparative assessment of achievement is often known as the The Nation’s Report Card. 12 http://ctedreform.org/whats-the-achievement-gap/cts-gap/ 13 Nicki Perkins, Connecticut Council on Educational Reform, “Our Legislative and Administrative Priorities,” Jan. 21, 2015 14 Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), “Connecticut Education in Crisis; 40,000 Children Trapped in Failing Schools,” Nov. 18, 2014. 15 Terrylynn M. Tyrell and Allyson Fierro, “The Nation’s Report Card on 4th Grade Reading 2011,” Voices for America’s Children, 2012, p. 2. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 14 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
“unacceptable disparities in achievement among racial and ethnic groups in our state.” The black-white racial gap in math was very large but relatively close to the national average but the white-Latino gap was substantially worse than the rest of the U.S. In reading tests, the black- white gap was very large and significant worse than the national average.16 Yet most of the talk by many education reformers and elected officials was about another round of new tests and higher standards. The omission of serious official attention to race in the education reform discussion is particularly odd because Connecticut’s Supreme Court sweepingly ruled 18 years ago that this segregation violates the state constitution and that district boundary lines were largely responsible for segregation. The Sheff Decision. Though the Sheff lawsuit was framed against segregation by poverty as well as race, the Court held that only racial segregation was contrary to the state’s basic law. When the Sheff case was before the State Supreme Court in 1995 the Justices struggled with the obvious segregation and inequality of education in the metropolitan Hartford area, the reasons it existed, and the possibility of addressing the problem under state law.17 In its 1996 decision the Court ruled that “extreme racial and ethnic isolation … deprives school children of a substantially equal educational opportunity.” Segregation, the court said, had a “pervasive and invidious impact on schools.”18 The remedy which grew out of the state Supreme Court’s ruling in Sheff v. O’Neill that the children of Hartford were unconstitutionally denied equal opportunity by district lines that kept them out of the region’s stronger schools in a very racially segregated metropolitan area. The Court found that the state’s districting system produced intense segregation but it left the remedy up to the governor and the legislature, subject to court approval. It would be up to the elected officials to come up with some answer and, ultimately, to the courts to rule whether the remedy was adequate to protect the constitutional rights of Connecticut students. These issues are still very much in dispute 20 years later. The state has, however, been implementing significant experiments in voluntary desegregation with some real successes since the l990s. These successes deserve serious attention. A number of the initial state government responses to the decision were not actually about desegregation but were about educational initiatives the state believed to be beneficial such as more early childhood education. The two desegregation responses involved a small voluntary transfer to the suburbs program and the creation of a set of regional magnet schools to spur voluntary integration across district boundaries. Both were modest in comparison to the scale of the segregation in the state and were broadened somewhat in later agreements between the state and the plaintiffs. The remedy neither merged the districts nor mandated that students or teachers transfer across district lines to achieve integration, but relied almost completely on choice programs which enabled some city students to transfer to suburban schools and created a series of regional magnet schools in the state’s metropolitan areas which were designed to offer strong
16 Connecticut State Department of Education, “Connecticut’s 12th Graders Score above the Nation in Reading and Math: Connecticut Seniors Show Solid Overall Performance in First State-Level High School NAEP but Mathematics and Gaps Still a Concern,” News Release, Nov. l8, 2010. 17 Susan Eaton, The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial, Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2006, pp. 167-175. 18 Sheff v. O’Neill, 678 A.2d 1267, 238 Conn. 1, 678 A.2d 1267, 111 Ed. Law Rep. 360 Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 15 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles and unique educational programs that could attract students of all races to voluntarily enroll across district lines in integrated magnet schools. In the Hartford area where a poor central city, once a great center of American culture, is surrounded by suburbs, most of which offer much stronger schools, the Capitol Region Education Council working with member districts and receiving funds from the court settlement has expanded from 3,600 students to 6,300 from 2008 to 2012 in schools that are close, in overall enrollment, to one-third white, one-third black and one-third Latino. (The Hartford district runs about half of the magnets and three suburban districts also operate magnets.) The magnet schools have created a strong demand, with far more students desiring to enroll that can be accommodated so far. The CT Mirror reported in November 2013 that “Nearly Half the Students from Hartford Now Attend Integrated Schools,”19 The report showed that 8,374 Hartford students (actually about 43%) were in schools defined as integrated because they had at least 25% whites. Of those who attended more segregated schools, about 6,000 made applications to leave their current school but were not offered such a chance because of the shortage of spaces. The changes had been notable under the remedies. Back in 2007 only 11% of Hartford students were in schools integrated by that definition compared to 42% in 2013. State officials praised the progress and opposed the idea of raising the goal while civil rights groups were demanding additional steps. State and local officials wanted to change the definition of diversity in the plan. The Hartford Courant reported that in the current school year, 47.5% of Hartford students were in integrated schools, including some small part-time programs, touching 9,558 of the city’s 21,458 minority students.20 In addition about 2000 Hartford students were participating in the Open Choice program in which students in the city (and in Bridgeport and New Haven) can attend suburban schools willing to receive them with free transportation. This program is not limited to students of color but since few whites live in the central cities, the choice are basically for those students and families. Since there are no racial standards in the program, some choices are for transfers to heavily minority schools, producing little integration impact. Civil rights lawyers wanted further steps and a more regional approach. Phil Tegeler, one of the team of lawyers who fought the initial case, said, “There’s a lot more work to be done.” 21 Attorney Martha Stone referred back to the Supreme Court’s initial decision which saw the separation of school districts in the metro region as “the single most important” cause of segregation, and argued that “the ultimate answer in Sheff is regionalization,” merging separate districts to create a large district that could have a comprehensive plan.22 The magnet schools show very highly levels of achievement and virtually no achievement gap by race between Latino and white students at several subjects and grade levels. Within each racial group the students from poor families perform very substantially better than the statewide average for low income students. Those who have been in magnet schools for
19 “Nearly Half the Students from Hartford Now Attend Integrated Schools,” CT Mirror, Nov. 27, 2013. 20 Kathleen Megan, “Almost Half of Hartford Students Now Attend Integrated Schools,” Hartford Courant, Nov. 20, 2014. 21 Tegeler is now working with the Sheff Movement, a parent and community coalition that supports the expansion and improvement of the Sheff v. O’Neill regional integration system. 22 Ibid. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 16 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles several years show particularly marked gains.23 The magnet schools set up for integration purposes in the Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport metropolitan regions were so popular and the demand was so intense that it impacted the state budget. In response the legislature imposed a moratorium on new magnets in 2009 except in the Hartford area, which was protected by the Sheff decision. About one student in fourteen in the state now attends a magnet and the total enrollment is nearly 40,000 in the 84 schools.24 The Open Choice plan was the current version of the small inter-district transfer plan, Project Concern, that had begun in the Hartford region in the l960s. Project Concern, a program for voluntary transfer of a relatively small minority students to suburban schools was similar to the METCO program in Boston but it showed a pattern of significant growth and then steady decline in effort and enrollment in spite of major research efforts that documented clear benefits from the program. Robert Crain, one of the nation’s leading researchers on desegregation questions, and his colleagues, took advantage of Project Concern’s unusual process of selecting students which produced an approximately random distribution between selected and non- selected applicants that made possible much stronger conclusions about the program than in the vast bulk of desegregation research in which participation is not randomized. The findings were compelling—significant educational gains for the transferred students, compared to a similar group not given transfers, and major gains in high school graduation, among other important findings. 25 In spite of these findings the project and the state’s support for it declined by more than half between l980 and the late l990s. Overall, Connecticut has five significant programs of educational choice. Both the inter- district magnet schools and the Open Choice transfer program are part of the desegregation remedies approved the state courts. The other three-charter schools, technical high schools, and agricultural educational centers operate outside the desegregation context and have no effective integration rules in spite of the mandate in the Sheff decisions that the state foster desegregated educational settings.26 By the 2011-12 school year there were more than 49,000 students attending some kind of choice school in the state, nearly 9% of the state’s total enrollment. 55% of the choice students were in the interdistrict magnets which had more than doubled in a decade. There were 63 interdistrict magnets enrolling 27,170 students. The Open Choice program was far smaller at just 2,086 students, only 4% of the choice students. Charter schools had also more than doubled in
23 Sarah S. Ellsworth, “CREC Student Achievement Overview 2013,” Capital Region Education Council Office of Data Analysis, Research and Technology, 2013. [Even students who have equally low incomes may, of course, differ from other students with similar income on some unmeasured dimension, meaning that some of the difference in outcomes may well be related to those factors, not simply the impact of the schools chosen]. 24 Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, School Choice: Future of New Magnet Schools Uncertain,” CT Mirror, Jan. 6, 2015. 25 Robert Crain, et. al, “Finding Niches: Desegregated Students Sixteen Years Later—Final Report on the Educational Outcomes of Project Concern, Hartford, Connecticut,” New York: Inst. for Urban Education, Teachers College, Columbia Univ., 1992; R. Crain and J. Strauss, “School Desegregation and Black Educational Attainment: Results from a Long Term Experiment,” Baltimore: Center for the Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins Univ., 1985. 26 Robert Cotto, Jr. and Kenneth Federa, Choice Watch: Diversity and Access in Connecticut’s School Choice Programs, New Haven: Connecticut Voices for Children, April 2014. Pp. 2, 10-11. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 17 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles the decade and accounted for 6,097 students, or an eighth of the choice students. The regional technical schools were not growing and made up about a fifth of the choice students.27 Given the distinctive policies that controlled these distinctive choice programs, it was reasonable to expect different results. A 2014 report by Connecticut Voices for Children concluded that “a majority of the magnet schools and technical schools were ‘integrated’ [by the standards set in the Sheff agreement] but only 18% of charter schools.” In fact, “the majority of charter schools were instead ‘hypersegregated’ with a student body composed of more than 90% minority students.” The report also found that the technical schools located in the big cities tended to be segregated while the magnet schools were not.28 Since 2012 the State Board of Education has approved six more charter schools and there is an effort to approve two more for the coming year. The state education commissioner has the authority to require changes in charter schools if they do not “achieve measurable progress in reducing racial, ethnic and economic isolation” and the Board could make this a prerequisite for a charter but has not done so.29 Under the Sheff remedy, the voluntary transfer program was gradually revived as the Open Choice program. It did not provide a right of students to transfer from segregated schools or a requirement that participating districts agree to accept enough students to create a substantial level of integration with a critical mass of nonwhite students. Unlike the earlier program, however, it was smaller, in a substantially larger metro area, and it was not race targeted, meaning that some of the spaces could and were taken up by some of the small number of whites in the central city using the plan to transfer to outlying white areas, undermining the already limited possibilities of integration within city schools. Or a black or Latino student in the suburbs could use the program to transfer into a more segregated school, but the district would not receive state incentive funds for the transfer. Under Project Concern all of the moves were required to increase integration. Though this specificity is lacking in Open Choice, the net effect clearly increases integration options. Open Choice statewide requires the voluntary participation of suburban school districts and provides some funding but does not fully cover the costs of high spending districts so there could be a financial penalty for participating. In Hartford, Open Choice currently involves 28 suburban districts. Each district gets half of its normal state aid, per student, and a fixed sum which often does not normally cover the other half of state aid and the local per student expenditure. Since the cost of adding a few students per school is often significantly less than the average cost per student (the marginal vs. the average cost) enrolling a small number of students may or may not create a financial problem. The state formula provides small added funding for districts with few transfers and more adequate levels for higher numbers of transfers. An
27 Ibid., pp. 6-7. 28 Ibid., p. 9 29 Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, “Report: Many Connecticut Charter Schools ‘Hyper-Segregated,” CT Mirror, April 9, 2014. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 18 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles estimated 1850 Hartford students participated in Open Choice in fall 201330 and about 2000 this year. The New York Times Magazine noted the remarkable success of low income students who were able to enroll in the Greenwich Schools where there is no significant area of concentrated poverty: “Around 13% of the school’s students receive free or discounted lunches, a commonly used measure of low income status. And more than three-quarters of those students scored at or above proficiency on the most recent statewide 10th-grade performance tests. At nearby Stamford High School, where nearly 47% of students are on the lunch program, almost half the students failed to meet proficiency levels.”31 Of course, in the intensely segregated centers of the state’s major cities the problems are much deeper. Connecticut reached new agreement to increase integration in the Hartford area in April 2013. Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor announced that “the new agreement provided the opportunity to extend the agreement for an additional near which was needed to reach the goals including the placement of 41% of Hartford’s minority students in reduced racially isolated settings.” The stipulation called for “the expansion of opportunities at existing magnet schools, the addition of new magnet schools, and an increase of available seats at Open Choice Schools with more state support.” The release noted the previous plan had produced “placement of 37% of Hartford resident minority students in reduced isolation educational settings.”32 Martha Stone, Executive Director of the Center for Children's Advocacy, one of the civil rights attorneys in the case, said, "We have signed an agreement today that creates new schools that will allow thousands more of Hartford's school children to take advantage of equal educational opportunities.”33 By the time of this agreement about a third (34%) of Hartford’s students were attending regional magnets or going to another district on the choice program. Negotiations continued in 2013 and a new stipulation provided additional means to reach the goals including new magnet schools as well as a commitment to negotiate a long term agreement. 34 In February 2013 the court approved a new agreement between the state and the Sheff plaintiffs. It raised to 47.5% the goal percentage for minority students living in Hartford in an integrated setting by fall 2015, affecting about 1300 more city students. The plan also called for expanding suburban Open Choice enrollment by 325 and for negotiating a new long term agreement by August, 2015. The Sheff Movement community coalition35 continue to press for further efforts. By and large, Connecticut has successful schools which are well supported and many of the state’s students experience outstanding academic success. The regional magnets expand educational choice options by offering both city and suburban children unique curricula rarely possible within individual districts. The state also, however, still has impoverished segregated nonwhite schools where the outcomes are usually profoundly disappointing even though considerable money is invested and a succession of reforms have been implemented.
30 Connecticut Department of Education, “Summary of all Hartford-Resident Minority PK-12 Students Enrolled in Reduced Isolation Settings,” Oct. 1, 2013 Enrollment Data. 31 Adam Davidson, “The Other Greenwich,” New York Times Magazine April 14, 2013, pp. 16-17. 32 Connecticut State Department of Education News Release “State Department of Education Reaches Agreement with Plaintiffs in Sheff v. O’Neill Litigation on 1 Year Extension “, April 30, 2013. 33 Press Release, “Significant New Agreement Signed in Sheff vs. O'Neill,” April 30, 2013. 34 “Nearly Half the Students from Hartford Now Attend Integrated Schools,” CT Mirror, Nov. 27, 2013. 35 See www.sheffmovement.org Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 19 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Racial and Ethnic Change in Connecticut
Connecticut is one of parts of the country first settled by European immigrants and some of communities most affected by racial change are among the nation’s most historic. Off the paths of the largest migrations of African Americans from the South and Latinos from Mexico and the Caribbean, much of the state remained overwhelmingly white much longer than many other states. Its recent history, however, shows that important demographic changes and major challenges are now under way. New England was 97% white in l960 and just 2% black. The Hispanic population was even smaller but it is impossible to say how small because the Census Bureau did not even count it until the l980 Census.36 For the first two centuries of the U.S. Census beginning in 1790 the share of nonwhite population in the region had been miniscule. Even the very small shares in l960 were more than twice as large as those in l940. The region went into the civil rights era with a tiny nonwhite minority, though minorities were already making up a substantial share of the public school population in central cities, in part because of the region’s housing segregation and the fragmentation of metropolitan areas with small pre-automobile central cities separated from a myriad of small communities and school districts, some of which had been independent villages for generations before the American revolution and were now part of burgeoning suburban rings. These were areas with rapidly declining ties to central cities as jobs and commerce moved out to suburban locations. The postwar Baby Boom gave way to a steep and continuing decline in the family size of U.S. white families. The postwar move to the suburbs in ring after ring of communities developed for and marketed to white families continued as racial change developed, draining cities of essential human and financial resources and leaving behind those who were poor and those who were discriminated against in the real estate and mortgage markets. The development of the great freeways with federal funds lead to the creation of massive regional shopping and office centers, taking jobs and tax revenue from the cities. Public policy provided a variety of incentives and subsidies for suburbanization but it was largely for whites only as the suburbia took shape.37 Not until 1968 was the federal fair housing enacted and it was given significant enforcement power only two decades later.38 A half century ago, some of the consequences of these changes were already painfully evident in the state’s central cities. Major racial changes continued. The size of black families fell sharply after the l960s but not as fast as white families. By the mid-1970s the South was booming and New England was stagnating as a job market though there were prosperous regions, there was a net black migration to the South and a net white migration to the Sunbelt. Into this vacuum came a greatly expanded
36 U.S. Bureau of the Census, “New England Division—Race and Hispanic Origin: 1790- 1990,” Sept 12, 2002. The school population began to be counted by race and ethnicity in the l960s. The city was substantially affected by the large post-war Puerto Rican immigration which centered on New York City and significantly impacted cities from Boston to Philadelphia. 37 Kenneth T. Jackson, The Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985); Tom Martinson, American Dreamscape: The Pursuit of Happiness in Postwar Suburbia, New York: Carol and Graf Publishers, 2000; 38 John M. Goering, ed., Housing Desegregation and Federal Policy, Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1986. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 20 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles and different international migration. After World War II there was a large migration of Puerto Ricans to the Northeast. With the l965 repeal of the immigration law that had overwhelmingly favored Europeans and created impossible barriers for immigrants from Africa and Asia, the U.S. began to experience a huge migration of young families from Latin America and Asia, the largest migration in more than a half century and the first predominantly nonwhite immigration in U.S. history.39 What had been modest Latino numbers, concentrated in the Southwest, New York City, South Florida and Chicago, became the nation’s largest minority community by 2000. Asians, who had been a virtually invisible population outside of a few cities, became a significant and visible population with their remarkable immigration of highly educated immigrants as well as a much smaller stream of poor refugees from the Vietnam War. We became a four race country with the majority population not having enough children to reproduce itself and aging.40 Latinos and Asians began to move out of their traditional areas into all parts of the U.S. and New England began to change. Connecticut reflected this pattern. In l960, as the civil rights movement began to burst on the country, it was 96% white with only 107,000 African Americans. The state had always had a small black population but there were deep roots. Slavery had existed in the state before the American Revolution but was then outlawed and virtually disappeared by l820. The state’s tiny proportion of blacks did not change significantly until the World War II economic boom in the state’s then powerful manufacturing industries. But there were still only 4% blacks in 1960. Then the change accelerated. Connecticut young people today live in a society dramatically different and more diverse than its retirement age population experienced when growing up, meaning that all of the institutions and practices created for a different society are challenged by transformations which are difficult for many in the older generations to understand. In 2010, 22% of the babies born in Connecticut were Hispanic and another 13% were African American—together more than a third of the total. Only 7% of the state’s deaths, however, were African American and just 4% were Hispanic, showing the dramatic differences in racial composition by age groups.41 Elderly New Englanders grew up in a world with few nonwhites. Their grandchildren are growing up in a truly diverse world with large groups that were simply not present in the communities that shaped the views and understandings of older generations. Suburbanization after World War II made many think that they could leave racial diversity behind in the city, but now the change, which reached its peak long ago in the cities, is focused squarely on large sectors of suburbia.42 The changes that have happened so far are but a foretaste of the change that is coming. New England is one of the last regions of the country to feel to force of these transformations but Connecticut is not far from New York City, a great magnet for both the Latino and Asian migration and is clearly in the path of future changes, particularly as the economy revives. New England’s population would be visibly shrinking now were it not for
39 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act, INA, Act of 1965, Pub.L. 89–236 40 Laura B. Shrestha and Elayne J. Heisler The Changing Demographic Profile of the United States , Washington: Congressional Research Service, March 31, 2011 41 Connecticut Department of Public Health, http://www.ct.gov/dph/cwp/view.asp?a=3132&q=394598, accessed April 20, 2013 42 Erica Frankenberg and Gary Orfield, eds., The Resegregation of Suburban Schools: A Hidden Crisis in American Education, Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2012. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 21 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles nonwhite families and Latino and Asian immigration. The conditions of Connecticut’s cities, harsh as they are, would certainly be considerably worse if there were not substantial communities of migrants making use of infrastructure and housing abandoned by whites and, increasingly, by middle class families of all races.
Table 1: Public School Enrollment by Race, 1987-2013 Total Percentage
Enrollment White Black Asian Latino AI Mixed Connecticut 1987-1988 445,958 76.8% 12.0% 1.9% 8.8% 0.2% 1997-1998 517,220 72.2% 13.2% 2.5% 11.8% 0.2% 2007-2008 551,421 65.7% 13.6% 4.0% 16.3% 0.4% 2012-2013 534,513 59.9% 12.8% 4.8% 20.1% 0.3% 2.1% Northeast 1987-1988 7,038,318 79.3% 12.7% 2.3% 5.9% 0.1% 1997-1998 7,878,138 69.5% 15.0% 4.0% 11.2% 0.3% 2007-2008 7,865,746 64.0% 15.0% 5.6% 15.1% 0.3% 2012-2013 7,738,688 59.1% 14.3% 6.6% 17.9% 0.3% 1.7% Nation 1987-1988 40,160,284 70.6% 13.9% 3.3% 11.3% 0.9% 1997-1998 46,514,592 62.5% 16.9% 3.9% 15.6% 1.1% 2007-2008 48,063,084 55.5% 16.7% 4.8% 21.8% 1.2% 2012-2013 48,978,700 50.8% 15.4% 5.1% 24.8% 1.1% 2.8%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Note: AI = American Indian
The state’s schools were only about an eleventh Latino in 1987 but a fifth in 2012, a huge change. Only a fiftieth of the students were Asian in 1987 but by 2012 it was nearly one in twenty students. While these two groups doubled their share of the state’s students, the proportion of white students fell from 77% to 60%. The total enrollment in the state was stagnant, up only 3.3% in the 15 years from 1997-2012 (see Table1). Given the collapse of birth rates in the Great Recession, this is likely to turn into a loss as those smaller cohorts of children begin school.43 For citizens of Connecticut the trends raise an important challenge. It may well be that the number of white students being graduated by the public schools is now in a period of continuous decline and that within a decade or so, whites entering college and the labor force will be a declining minority. This means that the people of the state need to worry seriously about the education of the coming nonwhite majority and about how best to raise all young people for a profoundly multiracial society where it will be essential for people of divided racial and ethnic groups to live and work and govern together. For those youths who eventually will
43 “Connecticut Had Nation’s 4th Lowest Birth Rate, New Federal Data Shows,” Connecticut by the Numbers, Oct. 7, 2012. http://ctbythenumbers.info/2012/10/07/connecticut-had-nations-4th-lowest-birth-rate-new-federal-data- shows/ Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 22 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles look for jobs in the larger national market, which will be even more diverse, this will be still more important. Connecticut since it is richer and whiter and less affected so far by migrant streams than many other states, has the luxury of some time to come up with a better answer than the “lets pretend-this-is-not-happening” policy model that has been the norm in this generation and has failed in so many communities around the U.S. Contemporary school policy debates tend to ignore issues of race and segregation by race and poverty, though these factors are so powerfully linked to school opportunities and outcomes. For three decades the country has been focused on testing, accountability, teacher quality and policies to create more competition from semi-private charter schools. Educational policy has been dominated by assumptions that date back to the l983 Reagan Administration’s report, A Nation at Risk which dismissed social issues and research on the dire effects of conditions outside the schools on children’s’ preparation and assumed that problems of unequal education could be solved inside schools by developing and enforcing appropriate test-based accountability. Since then, this framework has been adopted by Presidents of both parties and underlies the reforms in almost all states in the l980s. President Clinton’s “Goals 2000” and the bipartisan “No Child Left Behind Act” of the Bush Administration as well as Obama’s “Race to the Top” have been part of a remarkably enduring definition of educational problems and solutions. Public debate has ignored the fact that this approach has consistently failed to meet its goals and the gaps, which closed dramatically following the civil rights and poverty reforms of the l960s and early l970s, have been little changed for a generation. There was a strong focus in the l960s to the mid-1970s in the impact of race and poverty on unequal schooling and on desegregating public schools, mainly in the Southern states with histories of state laws mandating segregation.
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 23 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Changes in Segregation
Historically Connecticut was home to several relative small central cities with strong industrial, commercial and educational bases. Some of these cities are truly old. Hartford was founded in l635, Bridgeport in 1665, New Haven in 1638. As the cities developed they played an important role in American industry, education, and the intellectual life of the nation. Cultural influence reached a peak in the l9th century when Hartford was home to a cluster of writers including two the most famous in American literature, Mark Twain and Harrier Beecher Stowe. Connecticut was a pioneer in advanced manufacturing and played an important role in World War II industrial production. It was also the national center of the insurance industry, particularly in Hartford. New Haven, with Yale University, and Hartford, with the State capital, and a strong literary tradition, were centers of culture. After the civil war Hartford had been the wealthiest city in the nation for some time. But they were small central cities with nowhere to grow surrounded by many independent suburbs. Hartford has just l8 square miles. All of the big three cities had less than 150,000 population in 2010. Bridgeport, the largest has 19 square miles. New Haven has 20 square miles. All three were settled in the l630s. All three could be fit into a small corner of Los Angeles or many other automobile-age cities. In terms of land area this each like a city four miles long by four miles wide. These are pre-railroad, pre-streetcar cities built for walking and horses. They were cut off by independent suburbs before the automobile was invented and, of course, today occupy only a small part of the sprawling metropolitan areas engulfing them that came in post-baby boom America. . The localism of CT is reflected in the fact that the state abolished its system of counties in l960. This leaves localities even more on their own. It reflects the New England tradition of village level, highly decentralized, government. The fragmentation and localism, backed by centuries of tradition, means that it is hard to address metropolitan problems, especially sensitive social issues. So, normally, nothing is done. The serious and deeply rooted fragmentation of the relatively small metros meant that racial problems were particularly hard to address. The Connecticut Supreme Court recognized that the requirement that school districts are linked to municipalities was a cause of segregation. If a metropolitan area has 12% nonwhite population, the central city has only an eighth of the metropolitan population, and there is a pattern of strong housing segregation, it is easy for a city to have a substantial nonwhite majority in an overwhelmingly white area. This tends to be even more extreme for school age populations since the minority families are, on average younger and have more children and are more likely to use public schools than whites, particularly in central cities which have historically had a stronger parochial and private school tradition. White middle and upper class families with school-age children rarely consider living in older central cities. This is the Connecticut pattern. The data presented in this study focuses primarily on the period from 1987 to 2012. On a national level, the late l980s brought the highest level of desegregation for black students since the l954 Brown decision. Civil rights law had been unchanged since the l970s and residential segregation of blacks was gradually declining. Net migration from the south had ended in most areas and there was a reverse migration of blacks going back to the South, even as black family Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 24 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles sizes fell substantially. Fair housing laws and changing attitudes were producing some gains in residential desegregation and a significant number of black families were moving to the suburbs. After this period, however, segregation began to rise again for black students nationally and in most regions and states as the Supreme Court authorized ending desegregation orders. Segregation for the rapidly growing Latino population was a different story. Largely ignored during the desegregation struggles of the 1960s and l970s, the soaring Latino immigration and population growth transformed the country but came after the period of serious civil rights enforcement and the Supreme Court did not define the right of Latinos to desegregated schools until nearly two decades after Brown. Ever since national data was first collected Latino segregation have steadily increased, reaching and surpassing the black level on some measures by the late l980s. The trends in Connecticut have to be measured against those national patterns.
Figure 1: Black Students in Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut, 1987-2013
90 81.0 80 74.3 69.0 70 61.3 60 1987-1988 50 1997-1998 40 35.7 32.6 30.1 28.8 2007-2008 30 2012-2013 20 16.4 14.1 10 5.3 4.2 0 50-100% Minority School 90-100% Minority School 99-100% Minority School
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
The recent trends of segregation for black students in Connecticut differed significantly from the national trends. Although there was a significant increase in Connecticut black student concentration in schools with less than half white students (only 21% of black students were in majority white schools by 2010 in spite of the state’s substantial white majority), there was a significant and continuing decline in the share of black students that were attending schools that were intensely segregated or virtually all black and Latino. 36% of Connecticut black students were attending intensely segregated schools which had zero to ten percent whites in 1987 but that declined to 29% by 2012 even though the state proportion of white students fell significantly. The decline was sharper for the “apartheid” schools with one percent or fewer white students. One sixth of the state’s black students were in such schools in 1987 but only one twenty-fifth in 2012 (see Figure1).
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 25 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Figure 2: Latino Students in Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut, 1987-2013
80 71.7 74.1 67.4 69.8 70 60
50 1987-1988 40 33.7 1997-1998 30.6 2007-2008 30 24.1 21.0 2012-2013 20 9.9 10 6.5 2.9 1.0 0 50-100% Minority School 90-100% Minority School 99-100% Minority School
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
The data for Latino students also shows the same general trends. The proportion of Latino students in intensely segregated schools fell from 34 to 21% over this 25 year period while the percent in apartheid schools fell sharply from one tenth to one hundredth (see Figure 2). These were substantial improvements. At the same time, however, the share of Latino students in majority white schools also fell, but not as sharply as for African Americans, in spite of the faster growth of Hispanic enrollment. African American segregation was more entrenched. For both African American and Hispanic students fewer were accessing the typical white middle class Connecticut schools but, at the same time, substantially fewer faced extreme isolation. As the white share of the population drops there would be fewer majority white schooling opportunities even if no policies changed. All, in all, these numbers in Figures 1 and 2 clearly suggest a significant impact of the of the magnet and transfer plans implemented under the Sheff case and the outward movement of Latino and African American families to suburban communities, whose diversity may prove to be either transitional or lasting, depending on how it is managed. There had been significant progress in reducing the extreme forms of segregation. When the Connecticut data is compared with trends in neighboring Massachusetts it is clear that the Connecticut record on the trend of extreme segregation is more positive. In Massachusetts the growth in intense segregation was significant while these numbers were shrinking in Connecticut probably in response to the Sheff plans.44 There has been a notable increase in the percentage of students from all groups who attend multiracial schools in Connecticut. Such schools have more than 10% of students enrolled from three or more different groups. This trend has been most clear for blacks and Latinos who are most likely to be enrolled in schools with each other and at least one other group—most commonly whites. This is not because these students are experiencing increasing contact with
44 The Civil Rights Project at UCLA. (2000). Losing Ground: School Segregation in Massachusetts. Los Angeles, CA: Jennifer B. Ayscue and Alyssa Greenberg. Retrieved from http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12- education/integration-and-diversity/losing-ground-school-segregation-in-massachusetts/ayscue-greenberg-losing- ground-segregation-mass.pdf Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 26 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles whites—in fact, it is because they are experiencing increasing contact with each other and with Asians. Whites are least likely to be interracial schools. Since these schools cover a wide range of combinations, it is hard to describe them as a group and more research is needed on the implications and stability of these changes. But it is clear that significantly more students of all races are experiencing something of the multiracial society of the state’s future. Figure 3: White Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, 1987-2013
100 88.4 90 85.2 80.2 76.8 80 74.4 75.0 72.2 71.6 67.8 70 65.7 59.9 61.7 60
50
36.8 40 33.8 34.1 35.3 35.2 34.7 31.6 28.9 30
20
10
0 1987-1988 1997-1998 2007-2007 2012-2013
% White White Black Asian Latino Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
In terms of any theory about the educational and social value of integration there has to be significant real contact with significant numbers of students of other races or ethnicities under positive conditions to expect substantial benefits. Educational benefits for disadvantaged groups of students depend largely on getting access to the more challenging classes and peer groups and the different networks and support systems that exist in stronger schools, most of which have substantial white middle class enrollment. This cannot happen, of course, if there is little actual exposure. What we have seen in the Connecticut data is a significant decline in the average portions of white students and middle class students in the schools attended by black and Latino students. We calculate the exposure index by looking at the racial composition of the school each student of any race attends and then adding them all together and computing a statewide average exposure level between groups. In 1987, the average Latino student in the state attended a 34% white school, and this figure remained unchanged in 2012 (35%). For African American students who were much less integrated with whites than Latinos were in l987 there was also a substantial decline from 37 to 29% (see Figure 3). This means that there was less and less opportunity for intergroup contact and fewer connections to the white community for the average students of color. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 27 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Figure 4: Percentage of Racial Group in Multiracial Schools by Race in Connecticut, 1987-2013
60 56.2 53.7
50 45.7 52.6 51.1 41.2 40 41.4 34.2 35.0 White 28.9 28.9 34.4 Black 30 30.7 Asian 20.4 19.4 Latino 20 16.7 17.2 American Indian 11.5 9.5 10
7.3 0 1987-1988 1997-1998 2007-2008 2012-2013
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
White students in Connecticut are far more concentrated in white schools than whites across the U.S. As Figure 5 shows, the state’s typical white student is in a 75% white school with an average of nearly 5% Asian students. The state’s Asian students attend schools that are almost two-thirds white on average and 8% Asian since there is no significant pattern of Asian residential segregation. 17% of school mates of Asian students are Latino and only 11% are African American. Less than a ninth of the classmates of white students, on average, are Latino and less than a sixteenth are black. African American and Latino students attend schools with fundamentally different student bodies than whites and Asians. Only about or less than a third of their classmates are white, only about 4% are Asian, and both go to schools with about a third classmates from their own group and substantial numbers of students from another disadvantaged group. Latinos attend schools with an average of 20% black enrollment and blacks attend schools with an average of 32% Latino enrollment (see Figure 5). Typically, black and brown students are in schools with each other and with a declining minority of whites in this heavily white state. They attend schools with a small minority of middle class students in this well-to-do state. Such schools of double segregation create, on average. Fundamentally more limited educational possibilities.
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 28 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Figure 5: Racial Composition of School Attended by Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, 2012-2013
100% 11.7 90% 17.4 4.9 31.5 80% 6.2 7.8 38.7 70% 10.6 4.0 60% 4.1 Latino 50% Asian 33.3 20.0 Black 40% 75.0 White 30% 61.7
20% 34.7 28.9 10%
0% White Black Asian Latino
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Note: Composition figures exclude American Indian and mixed race students and therefore, do not exactly equal 100%.
Segregation by Poverty In contrast to many states where a majority of all children come from families poor enough to qualify for federally subsidized or free school lunches, particularly after the Great Recession, this is true for only a third of students in Connecticut, one of the richest states. But the comparative inequality in racial exposure to poor students is more extreme in Connecticut than in the nation as a whole. Across the U.S., black and Latino students are in schools with about twice as high a proportion of poor children than white students. In Connecticut the ratio is 3 to 1 — black and Latino students have three times as many poor classmates as whites and whites attend schools that are overwhelmingly middle class, with significantly less exposure to low income classmates Schools and communities where most of the families are poor have fewer out-of-school, academically stimulating opportunities, lower outside financial and volunteer contributions to the school, a more unstable population because poor families must move more often, more untreated chronic medical problems, more exposure to violence, and many other differences. Since there is a very strong relationship between the poverty of students in a school, the level of competition in the school, the graduation rate, the curriculum offered, and the skills and experience of teachers, and the connections with colleges among many critically important differences. The fact that black and Latino students face both segregation from whites and Asians and from middle class fellow students is strongly linked to educational inequality. Connecticut’s black and Latino students face double segregation and double harm since they are simultaneously isolated on both dimensions. By 2013, in the intensely segregated schools with Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 29 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles less than a tenth whites, 90% of the students were poor enough to need free or reduced price lunches. These children have very few links either to whites or to middle class students. Fortunately, the share of the state’s black and Latino students in these intensely segregated schools has declined significantly in the Sheff era. Figure 6: Exposure to Low-Income Students for Typical Racial Typical Student in Connecticut, 1997-2013
61.6 29.8 2012-2013 63.1 22.3 36.2
57.8 Latino 23.6 Asian 2007-2008 57.1 Black 17.0 White 29.4 % of Low-Income
48.8 17.2 1997-1998 42.6 10.5 19.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
Although high concentrations of poverty would negatively affect opportunities for whites, as well, whites in Connecticut have little contract with poor classmates. As Figure 6 shows, whites were least likely to be exposed to students from low-income families, nearly two- thirds of classmates of black and Latino students were poor students in 2012. This pattern clearly raises the stakes on Connecticut’s segregation. The extremely different school compositions for white and Asian children create far superior opportunities and connections for those children in schools which have more powerful parents and communities with better resources backing their schools. When hard choices have to be made about programs and staffing communities that are organized and have parents with resources and skills as well as money to contribute have an enormous advantage and that advantage also accrues to the children who attend the local schools.
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 30 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Multiracial and Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut
Table 2: Schools Classified by Percent of Nonwhite Students in Connecticut, 1987-2013
Total Multiracial 50-100% 90-100% 99-100% Schools Schools Minority Schools Minority Schools Minority Schools 1987-1988 918 11.3% 14.3% 5.8% 2.0% 1997-1998 991 18.5% 21.8% 7.8% 2.6% 2007-2008 1,019 27.6% 30.0% 8.9% 1.4% 2012-2013 1,035 27.7% 35.1% 9.4% 1.2%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Note: Nonwhite students represent Black, Latino, American Indian, and Asian students.
The severe segregation by race is concentrated in a small minority of schools. Although the proportion of intensely segregated schools—where less than 10% white students are enrolled— decreased from 2% to 1.2% between 1987-2012, the share of schools with predominantly nonwhite students increased from 5.8% to 9.4% for the same period. In addition, a third of the state’s 1,035 schools had a majority of nonwhite students (see Table 2). Depending on whether or not there are appropriate school and housing desegregation policies in place to support lasting integration a substantial fraction of those schools may be on a path to severe segregation.
Figure 7: Schools Classified by Percent of Nonwhite Students, 1987-2013
2012-2013 27.7% 35.1% 9.4% 1.2%
2007-2008 27.6% 30.0% 8.9% 1.4%
1997-1998 18.5% 21.8% 7.8% 2.6%
1987-1988 11.3% 14.3% 5.8% 2.0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
% of Multiracial Schools % of 50-100% Nonwhite Schools % of 90-100% Nonwhite Schools % of 99-100% Nonwhite Schools
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
The really interesting fact about the trends shown in Table 3 is that we do not see in Connecticut the increased concentration in intensely segregated schools that we find at a national level. In fact, in spite of the fact that the state’s African American and Latino proportions have increased both groups are significantly less likely to be in apartheid schools where a tenth of Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 31 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles fewer white students are enrolled. For example, there were 1% of Latino and about 4% of African American students in apartheid schools in 2012, and these figures were much lower than the ones in 1987. This is an important accomplishment.
Table 3: Black and Latino Students in Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut, 1987-2013 50-100% Minority 90-100% Minority 99-100% Minority
School School School Latino Black Latino Black Latino Black 1987-1988 67.4 61.3 33.7 35.7 9.9 16.4 1997-1998 69.8 69.0 30.6 32.6 6.5 14.1 2007-2008 71.7 74.3 24.1 30.1 2.9 5.3 2012-2013 74.1 81.0 21.0 28.8 1.0 4.2
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
Table 4: White Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, the Northeast, and the U.S. % White White Black Asian Latino Connecticut 1987-1988 76.8% 88.4% 36.8% 74.4% 33.8% 1997-1998 72.2% 85.2% 34.1% 71.6% 35.3% 2007-2007 65.7% 80.2% 31.6% 67.8% 35.2% 2012-2013 59.9% 75.0% 28.9% 61.7% 34.7% Northeast 1997-1998 69.5% 87.0% 25.5% 51.6% 26.4% 2007-2007 64.0% 83.1% 25.1% 48.7% 27.5% 2012-2013 59.1% 79.1% 23.4% 44.3% 27.1% Nation 1997-1998 62.5% 80.8% 32.3% 45.3% 27.0% 2007-2007 55.5% 76.2% 29.5% 43.6% 25.6% 2012-2013 50.8% 71.9% 27.2% 38.9% 25.0%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Other interpretations: Typical (racial group) exposure to white students, percentage of white students in school with a typical (racial group) student, or the average intergroup exposure to white students for a typical (racial group) student.
Intergroup Contact in Connecticut’s Public Schools With respect to students’ contact with white students, black and Latino students on average are in schools with about one-third white students while Asian students attend schools that average two thirds white and white students attend schools that are more than three fourths white. The white share of schools attended by Latinos has remained almost unchanged though
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 32 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Latino numbers have grown rapidly while black students are in contact with fewer whites. Possibly this reflects less severe residential segregation (see Table 4). In addition, Table 5 shows that the percentage of blacks in the school of the typical white student is small and has changed little and not at all since l997. On average, a white student would have one to two black students in his or her classroom if students are distributed fairly within schools. Asian exposure to black students has declined slightly and so has the exposure of black students to fellow blacks. Blacks are increasingly isolated from whites and from other blacks. They are in contact with more Latinos, combining two disadvantaged minority groups.
Table 5: Black Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, the Northeast, and the U.S. % Black White Black Asian Latino Connecticut 1987-1988 12.0% 5.8% 43.0% 11.1% 25.1% 1997-1998 13.2% 6.2% 41.4% 12.3% 24.4% 2007-2007 13.6% 6.5% 37.1% 11.4% 23.1% 2012-2013 12.8% 6.2% 33.3% 10.6% 20.0% Northeast 1997-1998 15.0% 5.5% 53.2% 13.8% 23.1% 2007-2007 15.0% 5.9% 49.0% 12.3% 21.0% 2012-2013 14.3% 5.7% 46.0% 11.4% 18.5% Nation 1997-1998 16.9% 8.7% 54.3% 11.9% 11.0% 2007-2007 16.7% 8.9% 51.4% 11.6% 11.5% 2012-2013 15.4% 8.2% 48.5% 10.7% 10.9%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
The slow growth in diversity for whites has come from growing contact with Asians and Latinos, not African Americans. The proportions of both of these immigration-driven groups have doubled since l987. For example, Table 6 shows that the average percent of Asians in the school of the typical white student more than doubled, from 2% to almost 5% while the average white contact with Latinos soared from 3.9% to 11.7% more than half again the share of black fellow students (see Table 7). In 1987 the average white exposure to blacks (5.8%) was equal to the total of white exposure to Latinos (3.9%) and Asians (1.8%). By 2012, whites, on average had far more Latino classmates (11.7%), and this figure is a total of the average white exposure to Asians (4.9%) and blacks (6.2%) (see Tables 5, 6, and 7). To the extent that whites were in contact with nonwhites, it was a much more multiracial, predominantly non-black experience. There could be a substantial increase in the share of blacks in white schools with relatively small numbers. In contrast to an earlier era when there were fears of conversion of schools from white to black in cities with rapidly increasing black populations, apart from localized situations on the boundaries of black communities experiencing residential change, there was no longer any basis for such fears. Integration could be significantly increased for blacks with little impact on whites.
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 33 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Table 6: Asian Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, the Northeast, and the U.S. % Asian White Black Asian Latino Connecticut 1987-1988 1.9% 1.8% 1.7% 4.0% 2.2% 1997-1998 2.5% 2.5% 2.4% 4.4% 2.5% 2007-2007 4.0% 4.1% 3.3% 6.4% 3.4% 2012-2013 4.8% 4.9% 4.0% 7.8% 4.1% Northeast 1997-1998 4.0% 3.0% 3.7% 17.3% 6.0% 2007-2007 5.6% 4.2% 4.6% 21.1% 6.5% 2012-2013 6.6% 4.9% 5.3% 23.7% 6.8% Nation 1997-1998 3.9% 2.9% 2.8% 24.3% 4.5% 2007-2007 4.8% 3.8% 3.4% 22.9% 4.7% 2012-2013 5.1% 3.9% 3.6% 23.5% 4.7%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
Table 7: Latino Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, the Northeast, and the U.S. % Latino White Black Asian Latino Connecticut 1987-1988 8.8% 3.9% 18.4% 10.2% 38.8% 1997-1998 11.8% 5.8% 21.9% 11.5% 37.7% 2007-2007 16.3% 8.7% 27.7% 14.0% 38.0% 2012-2013 20.1% 11.7% 31.5% 17.4% 38.7% Northeast 1997-1998 11.2% 4.3% 17.3% 17.0% 44.2% 2007-2007 15.1% 6.5% 21.0% 17.6% 44.7% 2012-2013 17.9% 8.2% 23.2% 18.6% 45.9% Nation 1997-1998 15.6% 6.7% 10.2% 17.8% 56.8% 2007-2007 21.8% 10.1% 15.1% 21.1% 57.4% 2012-2013 24.8% 12.2% 17.6% 22.6% 56.7%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
In addition to exposure rates to each racial groups by the typical student of each race, another important way to look at the segregation data is to combine the three historically excluded groups, black, Latinos, and American Indian (AI) students and look at their segregation from the two most successful groups who on average attend more successful middle class schools with little poverty. In Connecticut in 2012, two-thirds (65%) of all students were white
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 34 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles or Asian and about one-third were Latino, African American, or American Indian45. Black, Latino, and AI students, on average attended schools with 37% white and Asian fellow students, relatively stable over 15 years, but, to Connecticut’s credit, this number had not declined as it had in national statistics. Nevertheless, this also means that black, Latino, and AI students usually attended schools where over 60% of their classmates were from the same group, while white and Asian students went to schools with nearly 80% of the same group classmates (see Figures 8 and 9). Figure 8: White and Asian Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, 1997-2013
100 87.7 87.3 90 84.4 83.8 79.8 79.1 80 74.7 76.0 74.2 69.7 69.5 70 64.7 60 50 36.537.737.5 38.637.3 38.936.7 40 34.9 32.8 30 20 10 0 1997-1998 2007-2008 2012-2013
% of White/Asian White Asian White/Asian Black Latino Black/Latino/AI
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
45 Percentage total does not add up to 100 percent, because students of two or more races are not included. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 35 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Figure 9: Black, Latino, and American Indian Students in School Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Connecticut, 1997-2013
70 63.5 65.1 65.1 62.362.5 61.462.7 61.1 59.0 60
50
40 33.2 30.3 28.3 30 25.3 24.0 25.8 18.1 18.9 20 15.6 16.2 12.3 12.7 10
0 1997-1998 2007-2008 2012-2013 % of Black/Latino/AI White Asian White/Asian Black Latino Black/Latino/AI
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
The story for exposure to fellow students in poverty told a different tale, and this be related to the Great Recession, which pushed many more families onto the free lunch and food stamps rolls as they lost jobs or income and became eligible for this public assistance. Between l997 and 2012 the share of low-income students in the state, defined by free lunch data, grew rapidly from20% to 36%. White students in 2012 were in schools with 22% poor students on average, but blacks and Latinos who had been in schools with close to half poor classmates in 1987 were now in schools with nearly two-thirds poor fellow students, clearly dominating the school. This increased the double segregation patterns in this wealthy state (see Table 8). Table 8: Exposure to Low-Income Students by Race, 1997-2013 % of Low-Income White Black Asian Latino Connecticut 1997-1998 19.5% 10.5% 42.6% 17.2% 48.8% 2007-2007 29.4% 17.0% 57.1% 23.6% 57.8% 2012-2013 36.2% 22.3% 63.1% 29.8% 61.6% Northeast 1997-1998 19.5% 9.9% 39.9% 25.7% 49.4% 2007-2007 34.3% 22.4% 58.0% 35.5% 60.5% 2012-2013 41.5% 29.2% 65.9% 38.2% 63.8% Nation 1997-1998 28.6% 19.0% 43.7% 30.0% 49.9% 2007-2007 41.1% 30.1% 55.8% 35.2% 59.0% 2012-2013 51.2% 40.0% 66.5% 41.5% 66.8%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 36 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
With respect to different levels of segregation in Connecticut’s public schools, the problem seems to come primarily from between-school-district segregation, not from within- school-district segregation. As the overall evenness measure of the state’s schools demonstrates in Table 9, a large proportion of segregation stemmed from the between-district segregation. For example, in 2012, the evenness measure of schools in Connecticut was 0.253, and the between- district segregation was 0.222, which comprised closely 88% of the entire evenness measure. However, a good sign is that the evenness measure decreased from 0.353 to 0.253 between 1997 and 2012, meaning that students of each racial groups in the state, in general, came to be more evenly distributed over the period examined. Table 9: Evenness Measure of Racial Groups across All Public Schools and Within/Between School Districts Connecticut H H (Between Districts) H (Within Districts) 1997-1998 0.353 0.311 0.042 2007-2008 0.297 0.265 0.033 2012-2013 0.253 0.222 0.031
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Note: H ranges from 0 (perfect evenness) to 1 (no evenness).
Why Segregation Matters The consensus of nearly 60 years of social science research on the harms of school segregation is that racially and socioeconomically isolated schools are strongly related to an array of factors that limit educational opportunities and outcomes. These factors include less experienced and less qualified teachers, high levels of teacher turnover, less successful peer groups, and inadequate facilities and learning materials. One recent longitudinal study showed that having a strong teacher in elementary grades had a long-lasting, positive impact on students’ lives, including reduced teenage pregnancy rates, higher levels of college-going, and higher job earnings.46 Unfortunately, despite the clear benefits of strong teaching, we also know that highly qualified47 and experienced48 teachers are spread unevenly across schools, and are much less likely to remain in segregated or resegregating settings.
46 Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., & Rockoff, J. E. (2011). The long-term impacts of teachers: Teacher value-added and student outcomes in adulthood (NBER Working Paper # 17699). Retrieved from: http:// obs.rc.fas.har vard.edu/chetty/value_added.pdf 47 Clotfelter, C., Ladd, H., & Vigdor, J. (2005). Who teaches whom? Race and the distribution of novice teachers. Economics of Education Review, 24(4), 377-392; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, (2005). 48 See, for example, Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2002). Teacher sorting and the plight of urban schools: A descriptive analysis. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24(1), 37-62; Watson, S. (2001), Recruiting and retaining teachers: Keys to improving the Philadelphia public schools. Philadelphia: Consortium for Policy Research in Education. In addition, one research study found that in California schools, the share of unqualified teachers is 6.75 times higher in high-minority schools (more than 90% minority) than in low-minority schools (less than 30% minority). See Darling-Hammond, L. (2001). Apartheid in American education: How opportunity is rationed to children of color in the United States, In T. Johnson, J. E. Boyden, & W. J. Pittz (Eds.), Racial profiling and punishment in U.S. public schools (pp. 39-44). Oakland, CA: Applied Research Center. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 37 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Findings show that the academic performance of classmates is strongly linked to educational outcomes for poor students date back to the famous 1966 Coleman Report commissioned by the U.S. Congress. The central conclusion of that report (as well as numerous follow-up analyses) was that the concentration of poverty in a school influenced student achievement more than the poverty status of an individual student which was also important. 49 This finding is related to whether or not high academic achievement, homework completion, regular attendance, and college-going are normalized by peers.50 Schools serving low-income and segregated neighborhoods have been shown to provide less challenging curricula than schools in more affluent communities that largely serve populations of white and Asian students. 51 High stakes testing has hurt minority-segregated schools producing a focus on rote skills and test taking strategies, in many instances, takes the place of creative, engaging teaching.52 By contrast, students in middle-class schools normally have little trouble with high-stakes exams, so the schools and teachers are free to broaden the curriculum. Segregated school settings are also significantly less likely than more affluent settings to offer AP- or honors-level courses.53 Additional findings on expulsion rates, dropout rates, success in college, test scores, and graduation rates underscore the negative impact of segregation. Student discipline is harsher and the rate of expulsion is much higher in minority-segregated schools than in wealthier, whiter ones.54 Dropout rates are significantly higher in segregated and impoverished schools (nearly all of the 2,000 “dropout factories” are doubly segregated by race and poverty),55 and if students do graduate, research indicates that they are less likely to be successful in college, even after
49 Borman, G., & Dowling, M. (2010). Schools and inequality: A multilevel analysis of Coleman’s equality of educational opportunity data. Teachers College Record, 112(5), 1201-1246. 50 Kahlenberg, R. (2001). All together now: Creating middle class schools through public school choice. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. 51 Rumberger, R. W., & Palardy, G. J. (2005). Does segregation still matter? The impact of student composition on academic achievement in high school. Teachers College Record, 107(9), 1999-2045; Hoxby, C. M. (2000). Peer effects in the classroom: Learning from gender and race variation (NBER Working Paper No. 7867). Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research; Schofield, J. W. (2006). Ability grouping, composition effects, and the achievement gap. In J. W. Schofield (Ed.), Migration background, minority-group membership and academic achievement research evidence from social, educational, and development psychology (pp. 67-95). Berlin: Social Science Research Center. 52 Knaus, C. (2007). Still segregated, still unequal: Analyzing the impact of No Child Left Behind on African- American students. In The National Urban League (Ed.), The state of Black America: Portrait of the Black male (pp. 105-121). Silver Spring, MD: Beckham Publications Group. 53 Orfield, G., & Eaton, S. E. (1996). Dismantling desegregation: The quiet reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: The New Press; Orfield, G., & Lee, C. (2005). Why segregation matters: Poverty and educational inequality. Cambridge, MA: Civil Rights Project. 54 Exposure to draconian, “zero tolerance” discipline measures is linked to dropping out of school and subsequent entanglement with the criminal justice system, a very different trajectory than attending college and developing a career. Advancement Project & The Civil Rights Project (2000). Opportunities suspended: The devastating consequences of zero tolerance and school discipline policies. Cambridge, MA: Civil Rights Project. Retrieved from http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/school-discipline/opportunities-suspended-the-devastating- consequences-of-zero-tolerance-and-school-discipline-policies/. 55 Balfanz, R., & Legters, N. E. (2004). Locating the dropout crisis: Which high schools produce the nation’s dropouts? In G. Orfield (Ed.), Dropouts in America: Confronting the graduation rate crisis (pp. 57-84). Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2004; Swanson, C. (2004). Sketching a portrait of public high school graduation: Who graduates? Who doesn’t? In G. Orfield, (Ed.), Dropouts in America: Confronting the graduation rate crisis (pp. 13- 40). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 38 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles controlling for test scores.56 Segregation, in short, has strong and lasting impacts.57 Desegregated schools are linked to providing students of all races with the opportunity to learn and work with children from a range of backgrounds. These settings foster critical thinking skills that are increasingly important in our multiracial society—skills that help students understand a variety of different perspectives.58 Relatedly, integrated schools are linked to reduction in stereotypes.59 Students attending integrated schools also report a heightened ability to communicate and make friends across racial lines.60 Desegregated settings are associated with heightened academic achievement for minority students,61 with no corresponding detrimental impact for white students.62 Black students who attended desegregated schools are substantially more likely to graduate from high school and college, in part because they are more connected to challenging curriculum and social networks that support such goals.63 Earnings and physical well-being are also positively impacted: a recent study by a Berkeley economist found that black students who attended desegregated schools for at least five years earned 25% more than their counterparts in segregated settings. By middle age, the same group was also in far better health.64 Perhaps most important of all, evidence indicates that school desegregation can have perpetuating effects across generations. Students of all races who attended integrated schools are more likely to seek
56 Camburn, E. (1990). College completion among students from high schools located in large metropolitan areas. American Journal of Education, 98(4), 551-569. 57 Wells, A. S., & Crain, R. L. (1994). Perpetuation theory and the long-term effects of school desegregation. Review of Educational Research, 64, 531-555; Braddock, J. H., & McPartland, J. (1989). Social-psychological processes that perpetuate racial segregation: The relationship between school and employment segregation. Journal of Black Studies, 19(3), 267-289. 58 Schofield, J. (1995). Review of research on school desegregation's impact on elementary and secondary school students. In J. A. Banks & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural education (pp. 597–616). New York: Macmillan Publishing. 59 Mickelson, R., & Bottia, M. (2010). Integrated education and mathematics outcomes: A synthesis of social science research. North Carolina Law Review, 88, 993; Pettigrew, T., & Tropp, L. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751-783; Ready, D., & Silander, M. (2011). School racial and ethnic composition and young children’s cognitive development: Isolating family, neighborhood and school influences. In E. Frankenberg & E. DeBray (Eds.), Integrating schools in a changing society: New policies and legal options for a multiracial generation (pp. 91-113). Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. 60 Killen, M., Crystal, D., & Ruck, M (2007). The social developmental benefits of intergroup contact among children and adolescents. In E. Frankenberg & G. Orfield (Eds.), Lessons in integration: Realizing the promise of racial diversity in American schools (pp. 31-56). Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press. 61 Braddock, J. (2009). Looking back: The effects of court-ordered desegregation. In C. Smrekar & E. Goldring (Eds.), From the courtroom to the classroom: The shifting landscape of school desegregation (pp. 3-18). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press; Crain, R., & Mahard, R. (1983). The effect of research methodology on desegregation-achievement studies: A meta-analysis. American Journal of Sociology, 88(5), 839-854; Schofield, J. (1995). Review of research on school desegregation's impact on elementary and secondary school students. In J. A. Banks & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural education (pp. 597–616). New York: Macmillan Publishing. 62 Hochschild, J., & Scrovronick, N. (2004). The American dream and the public schools. New York: Oxford University Press. 63 Guryan, J. (2004). Desegregation and Black dropout rates. The American Economic Review 94(4), 919-943; Kaufman, J. E., & Rosenbaum, J. (1992). The education and employment of low-income black youth in white suburbs. Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis,vol.14, 229-240. 64 Johnson, R. C., & Schoeni, R. (2011). The influence of early-life events on human capital, health status, and labor market outcomes over the life course. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy Advances, 11(3), 1-55. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 39 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles out integrated colleges, workplaces, and neighborhoods later in life, which may in turn provide integrated educational opportunities for their own children.65 Of course these benefits are not automatic and much depends on how diversity is handled within schools. In 1954, a prominent Harvard social psychologist, Gordon Allport, suggested that four key elements are necessary for positive contact across different groups.66 Allport theorized that all group members needed to be given equal status, that guidelines needed to be established for working cooperatively, that group members needed to work toward common goals, and that strong leadership visibly supportive of intergroup relationship building was necessary. Over the past 60-odd years, Allport’s conditions have held up in hundreds of studies of diverse institutions across the world.67 This does not mean that desegregation solves all problems of inequality, some of which are deeply rooted outside schools, or that segregated schools are not sometimes able to be successful on a number of these dimensions, usually with extraordinary leadership such as the Harlem Children’s Zone, but it does mean that students are significantly more likely to succeed in diverse schools.
Educational Outcomes in Segregated and Integrated Connecticut Schools Now With respect to educational outcomes, we examined graduation rate and academic performance and how they were linked with the overall share of each racial group. Table 10 shows relationships between graduation rate and the proportion of each racial groups in Connecticut schools. There was a 0.52 strong and positive correlation between graduation rate and the share of white students in school. Graduation rate was also moderately related to the overall share of Asian students. In contrast, it was strongly and negatively linked with the proportion of African American (r=-0.61) and Latino students (r=-0.43). In fact, there was a noticeable difference in graduation rate among racial groups in 2012. The Connecticut State Department of Education reports that four-year graduation rate for Asian and White students was 92% and 91%, respectively, whereas 67% of Latino students and 73% African Americans finished high school in four years68.
65 Mickelson, R. (2011). Exploring the school-housing nexus: A synthesis of social science evidence. In P. Tegeler (Ed.), Finding common ground: Coordinating housing and education policy to promote integration (pp. 5-8). Washington, DC: Poverty and Race Research Action Council; Wells, A.S., & Crain, R. L. (1994). Perpetuation theory and the long-term effects of school desegregation. Review of Educational Research, 6, 531-555. 66 Allport, G. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge: Addison-Wesley. 67 Pettigrew, T., & Tropp, L. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751-783. 68 Detailed information can be found at http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/word_docs/evalresearch/connecticut_2012_cohort_graduation_rates_.d oc Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 40 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Table 10: Pairwise Correlation between Graduation Rates and the Share of Each Racial Group Graduation Rate % White % Asian % Black % Latino % AI Graduation Rate 1.00 % White 0.52 1.00 % Asian 0.28 -0.01 1.00 % Black -0.61 -0.80 -0.24 1.00 % Latino -0.43 -0.87 -0.17 0.36 1.00 % AI 0.12 -0.02 0.02 -0.08 -0.01 1.00
Source: Connecticut State Department of Education 2012-2013 Enrollment and Graduation Rates Data Notes: All pairwise correlation results were significant at the p=0.05 level. AI=American Indian
In addition, students’ academic performance was investigated by employing Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) and Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) results. The overall academic performance was highly and strongly associated with the white share and was moderately linked with the proportion of Asian students. However, it was related to the share of African American (r=-0.38), Latino (r=-0.61), and American Indian (r=-0.34) students, and this shows the achievement gap between the white and Asian group and the black, Latino, and American Indian group, which we investigated in the previous section. Table 11: Pairwise Correlation between Academic Performance and the Share of Each Racial Group Academic % White % Asian % Black % Latino % AI Performance Academic Performance 1.00 % White 0.63 1.00 % Asian 0.28 -0.08 1.00 % Black -0.38 -0.89 -0.23 1.00 % Latino -0.61 -0.88 -0.05 0.50 1.00 % AI -0.34 -0.02 0.12 -0.08 -0.06 1.00
Sources: Connecticut State Department of Education 2012-2013 Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) and Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) Data for students in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 and Enrollment Data. Notes: All pairwise correlation results were significant at the p=0.05 level. Composite scores were used to examine academic performance. AI=American Indian
Racial Composition in Magnet Schools The state’s effort to integrate can be also found in magnet schools. In less than 10 years, the number of magnet schools in Connecticut increased by 50%, and the number of students enrolled in magnet schools also increased by over 70%. In comparison to non-magnet schools, magnet schools have a fairly distributed number of students from white, African American, and Latino students, and this shows great potential of fostering integration in the state (see Table 12).
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Table 12: Magnet and Non-Magnet Schools in Connecticut, 2007-2013 School Number Magnet Enrollment White Black Asian Latino AI Mixed Year of Schools 2007-08 Magnet 44 18,014 29.0% 41.4% 2.6% 26.5% 0.5% 2012-13 Magnet 66 30,858 30.2% 31.4% 4.4% 30.5% 0.4% 3.0% 2007-08 Non-Magnet 975 533,407 67.0% 12.6% 4.1% 16.0% 0.4% 2012-13 Non-Magnet 969 503,655 61.7% 11.6% 4.8% 19.5% 0.3% 2.1%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
In addition to racial composition in magnet schools, we also examined students’ overall contact with other groups by looking at exposure rates to a certain group of students by racial groups. As Table 13 shows, students in magnet schools were very likely to have more diverse experiences compared to their counterparts in non-magnet schools. For example, the overall white share in magnet schools was 30%, and the typical student of each racial group had a similar proportion of white classmates, which was between 27% and 34%. In contrast, there were, on average, 62% white students in non-magnet schools, and the typical student of each racial group attended schools where the white share was between 29% and 76%. There was a similar pattern for blacks in magnet and non-magnet schools. Magnet schools, on average, had nearly 31% blacks, and this figure was by far higher than the overall black share in non-magnet schools (12%). Exposure rates to African American students by the typical student in magnet schools ranged from 28% to 38%; each racial group had one-third of their classmates who were black. In non-magnet schools, however, black and Latino students tended to have more African American classmates, whereas whites and Asians were likely to attend schools where there were less black students. With regard to exposure to students living in poverty, magnet schools had a higher percentage of low-income students (56%) in comparison to non-magnet schools (35%). However, the typical student of each racial group in magnet schools had a similar proportion of poor classmates; roughly over half of their classmates were from low-income families. In contrast, the exposure rates to poor students by the typical student in non-magnet schools varied from 21% to 62%. Black and Latino students were more likely to attend schools that had more poor students, while white and Asian students tended to have less classmates living in poverty (see Table 13). In brief, although magnet schools comprised a small proportion of Connecticut’s public schools, they showed great potential of integration and possibilities of diverse experiences of each racial group.
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Table 13: Exposure to Each Racial Group and Low-Income Students in Magnet Schools and non-Magnet Schools, 2012-2013 % White White Asian Black Latino Magnet Schools 30.2% 34.1% 31.6% 26.7% 29.6% Non-Magnet Schools 61.7% 76.2% 63.4% 29.2% 35.2% % Black White Asian Black Latino Magnet Schools 31.4% 27.8% 29.4% 38.1% 29.0% Non-Magnet Schools 11.6% 5.5% 9.6% 32.5% 19.1% % Latino White Asian Black Latino Magnet Schools 30.5% 29.9% 28.7% 28.2% 34.0% Non-Magnet Schools 19.5% 11.1% 16.7% 32.0% 39.2% % Asian White Asian Black Latino Magnet Schools 4.4% 4.6% 6.9% 4.1% 4.2% Non-Magnet Schools 4.8% 4.9% 7.9% 3.9% 4.1% % Low-Income White Asian Black Latino Magnet Schools 55.8% 51.5% 48.8% 58.2% 58.8% Non-Magnet Schools 35.0% 21.4% 28.7% 64.0% 61.9%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data
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Metropolitan Trends
Overall Trends in Metropolitan Areas To examine metropolitan trends of Connecticut’s public schools, we employed the U.S. Census Bureau’s definition of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), which comprise one or more counties that include a city of 50,000 or more residents, or encompass a Census Bureau- defined urbanized area (UA) and have a total population of at least 100,000 inhabitants.69 In terms of the U.S. Census Bureau’s definition, there were five MSAs in Connecticut as of 2013: (1) Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT, (2) Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT, (3) New Haven-Milford, CT, (4) Norwich-New London, CT, and (5) Worcester, MA-CT (see Figure 10). Of the districts in these five MSAs, we focused on major districts that had a total enrollment of over 5,000 students, and three MSAs (Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT, Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT, and New Haven-Milford, CT) included major districts. In this report, we investigated 28 districts that contained over 263,000 students, which also comprised nearly half of the state’s total enrollment in public schools.
Figure 10: Metropolitan Statistical Areas in Connecticut
Source: U.S. Census Bureau Maps of Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas.70
Traditionally, the three MSAs have had a large number of white students; however, as Table 14 shows the share of white students declined while the proportion of Asians and Latinos increased in recent years. For instance, in the New Haven-Milford metropolitan area, the share of
69 See U.S. Census Bureau’s geographic areas reference manual for more detailed information: http://www.census.gov/geo/reference/garm.html 70 Higher resolution pdf file for metropolitan statistical areas is available at http://www.census.gov/population/metro/files/metro_micro_Feb2013.pdf Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 44 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles whites dropped by 6%, but the Latino share increased by 5% during the same period examined. In terms of changes in racial composition, the suburbs of these MSAs have become diverse as well, although suburban schools still had more white students in comparison to the overall metropolitan schools. For example, Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk’s suburban schools had 83% whites and 8% Latinos in 2012, but in 2007 there were closely 90% whites and 5% Latinos in the area’s public schools. However, schools in the overall Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk area had more diverse racial composition, including about 60% whites, 13% African Americans, 22% Latinos, and 5% Asians in 2012 (see Table 14).
Table 14: Public School Enrollment by Race in Metropolitan and Surburban Areas, 2007-2013 Metropolitan Statistical Area, 2007-2008 Enrollment White Black Asian Latino AI Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT 145,582 63.8% 13.4% 4.6% 18.0% 0.2% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT 189,731 64.9% 14.5% 4.1% 16.2% 0.3% New Haven-Milford, CT 128,691 58.9% 17.8% 3.7% 19.4% 0.2% Suburban Area, 2007-2008 Enrollment White Black Asian Latino AI Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT 69,906 87.8% 2.0% 4.7% 5.4% 0.1% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT 112,603 73.3% 10.2% 4.5% 11.8% 0.2% New Haven-Milford, CT 94,171 63.8% 13.3% 3.8% 18.9% 0.3%
Metropolitan Statistical Area, 2012-2013 Enrollment White Black Asian Latino AI Mixed Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT 145,619 58.0% 12.7% 5.4% 22.4% 0.2% 1.4% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT 183,469 59.8% 13.3% 5.2% 18.9% 0.2% 2.6% New Haven-Milford, CT 124,433 52.6% 17.2% 4.2% 24.2% 0.2% 1.6% Suburban Area, 2012-2013 Enrollment White Black Asian Latino AI Mixed Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT 72,161 82.6% 2.3% 5.5% 7.9% 0.2% 1.5% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT 108,554 66.3% 10.0% 5.7% 15.3% 0.2% 2.5% New Haven-Milford, CT 91,867 58.1% 12.3% 4.3% 23.0% 0.3% 2.0%
Source: U.S. Census Bureau Metropolitan and Micropolitan Data and U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Note: AI=American Indian.
When we look at individual major districts in metropolitan areas, however, there was a considerable difference across the districts. As Table 15 illustrates, the share of white and Asian enrollment was over 90% in some districts (e.g., Westport, Ridgefield, Newtown, and Southington) whereas the proportion of African American and Latino enrollment exceeded 80% in some districts, including Bridgeport, Hartford, East Hartford, and New Haven. In 2012, only a small number of districts had a fairly balanced group of students from each racial groups (e.g., Stamford, Norwalk, Manchester, Meriden, and West Haven), which may relate to the districts’ efforts to integrate and the overall changes of racial composition in the districts.
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Table 15: Public School Enrollment by Race in Major Districts in Connecticut, 2012-2013 District County City Urbanicity Enrollment White Black Asian Latino AI Mixed Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport Fairfield Bridgeport Urban 20,149 8.8% 38.6% 3.0% 48.8% 0.6% 0.3% Stamford Fairfield Stamford Urban 15,710 34.4% 19.7% 8.5% 36.4% 0.0% 1.0% Norwalk Fairfield Norwalk Urban 11,019 36.0% 20.0% 5.1% 37.7% 0.1% 1.1% Danbury Fairfield Danbury Urban 10,534 41.9% 8.2% 7.7% 40.2% 0.1% 1.9% Fairfield Fairfield Fairfield Suburban 10,294 81.0% 2.4% 5.4% 8.4% 0.1% 2.6% Greenwich Fairfield Greenwich Suburban 8,845 68.1% 3.1% 8.1% 17.8% 0.1% 2.8% Stratford Fairfield Stratford Urban 7,148 46.9% 21.0% 3.1% 26.3% 0.2% 2.4% Trumbull Fairfield Trumbull Suburban 6,914 80.4% 4.3% 6.9% 7.9% 0.2% 0.2% Westport Fairfield Westport Suburban 5,350 87.5% 1.6% 5.2% 4.0% 0.1% 1.6% Ridgefield Fairfield Ridgefield Suburban 5,276 87.6% 0.6% 5.1% 5.0% 0.1% 1.6% Newtown Fairfield Newtown Suburban 5,132 88.8% 1.3% 3.6% 4.9% 0.1% 1.4% Shelton Fairfield Shelton Suburban 5,112 79.8% 3.5% 6.2% 9.6% 0.2% 0.7% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford Hartford Hartford Urban 21,505 11.2% 31.6% 3.1% 50.0% 0.4% 3.7% New Britain Hartford New Britain Suburban 10,124 21.8% 14.3% 2.6% 59.6% 0.2% 1.6% West Hartford Hartford West Hartford Urban 9,987 61.5% 8.6% 11.2% 15.4% 0.3% 3.0% Bristol Hartford Bristol Suburban 8,268 67.7% 6.3% 3.1% 20.0% 0.2% 2.7% Southington Hartford Southington Suburban 6,697 87.0% 1.9% 3.0% 5.3% 0.2% 2.5% East Hartford Hartford East Hartford Urban 6,671 16.9% 34.6% 5.5% 42.1% 0.3% 0.6% Glastonbury Hartford Glastonbury Suburban 6,586 78.2% 2.7% 8.8% 6.9% 0.2% 3.3% Manchester Hartford Manchester Suburban 5,878 40.5% 22.0% 8.3% 24.5% 0.3% 4.3% Enfield Hartford Enfield Suburban 5,438 76.8% 5.7% 2.4% 10.1% 0.4% 4.6% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven New Haven New Haven Urban 19,918 14.3% 43.3% 2.3% 39.5% 0.2% 0.4% Waterbury New Haven Waterbury Suburban 18,107 22.0% 24.7% 1.8% 48.2% 0.4% 2.9% Meriden New Haven Meriden Suburban 8,174 34.5% 11.7% 3.5% 48.1% 0.5% 1.8% Milford New Haven Milford Urban 6,643 81.0% 4.6% 8.3% 5.9% 0.2% 0.1% Wallingford New Haven Wallingford Suburban 6,228 78.2% 2.4% 4.9% 14.1% 0.2% 0.3% West Haven New Haven West Haven Suburban 6,019 39.4% 21.8% 3.5% 31.5% 0.2% 3.7% Hamden New Haven Hamden Suburban 5,793 42.9% 30.1% 7.5% 16.5% 0.1% 2.8%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Note: AI=American Indian.
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Multiracial and Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut’s Large Districts The difference across Connecticut’s major districts in terms of concentration of minorities can be confirmed in the following table as well. As Table 16 shows, among the state’s largest school districts there were considerable numbers of multiracial schools, which enroll at least three different racial groups that comprise over 10% of the total enrollment, respectively. To illustrate, all schools in the Stamford, Norwalk, Stratford, Manchester and West Haven districts were multiracial schools, and a substantial number of schools in the New Britain, East Hartford, Waterbury, and Hamden districts were multiracial schools as well. However, a large percentage of multiracial schools does not imply that there are no problems of segregation or that individual schools’ racial composition are well managed or stable, but it clearly shows some possibilities in an increasingly multiracial society. At the same time, there was evidence of extreme segregation as well in some districts. For example, the share of major minority schools where less than 10% whites are enrolled was two-thirds in the Hartford district, and half of schools in the New Haven district and nearly 60% of Bridgeport district's schools were 90-100% minority segregated schools. Nevertheless, there was a positive sign. Regarding apartheid schools in which less than 1% whites are enrolled, Hartford district was the only district in Connecticut, which had apartheid schools, and the other large districts did not have any 99-100% minority schools in 2012.
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Table 16: Multiracial and Minority Segregated Schools in 2012-2013 50-100% 90-100% 99-100% Total Multiracial District Minority Minority Minority Schools Schools Schools Schools Schools Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 32 40.6% 100.0% 59.4% Stamford 20 100.0% 100.0% Norwalk 18 100.0% 88.9% Danbury 17 23.5% 82.4% Fairfield 17 11.8% Greenwich 15 40.0% 13.3% Stratford 13 100.0% 69.2% Trumbull 10 10.0% Westport 8 Ridgefield 9 Newtown 8 Shelton 8 12.5% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 47 36.2% 100.0% 66.0% 12.8% New Britain 15 80.0% 100.0% 6.7% West Hartford 16 50.0% 12.5% Bristol 12 Southington 11 East Hartford 14 78.6% 100.0% 21.4% Glastonbury 9 11.1% Manchester 12 100.0% 83.3% Enfield 11 9.1% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 40 50.0% 95.0% 50.0% Waterbury 29 89.7% 96.6% 10.3% Meriden 12 58.3% 100.0% Milford 13 Wallingford 12 West Haven 9 100.0% 66.7% Hamden 11 81.8% 72.7%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Note: Blank cells represent no schools or other. Minority school represents black, Latino, American Indian, and Asian students. Multiracial schools are those with any three races representing 10% or more of the total student enrollment respectively.
The intersection of poverty level and minority segregated schools shows that the poverty concentrations were very high in the predominantly minority schools in most Connecticut’s largest districts that had multiracial schools and minority segregated schools. As Table 17 illustrates, nearly all multiracial schools and minority segregated schools in the Connecticut’s major districts had similar or higher levels of poor students in comparison to each district’s
Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 48 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles overall share of low-income students in 2012. For example, the average share of low-income students in the Hartford district was 85%, but the district’s apartheid schools where over 99% minority students attend had 99.1% poor students. However, the most extreme segregation of minority schools by poverty came in Bridgeport. Virtually all students in the Bridgeport district came from low-income families, and an extremely high percentage of students in the district’s multiracial schools and minority segregated schools were poor students as well. In Connecticut’s large districts, virtually all the black and Latino students are in majority nonwhite schools (e.g., Bridgeport, Stamford, Norwalk, Hartford, New Britain, East Hartford, New Haven, etc.). Furthermore, when we look at intensely segregated schools where zero to ten percent of the students are white, about two-thirds of Latino and black students attended such schools in Bridgeport, and half of Latinos and blacks in New Haven went to the intensely segregated schools. In the Hartford district, in particular, nearly three-fourth of Latino students and two-thirds of black students attended such schools; furthermore, closely 8% of Latinos and 17% of blacks went to extremely segregated schools where zero to one percent of the students are white (see Table 18).
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Table 17: Low-Income Students in Multiracial and Minority Segregated Schools in Connecticut’s Metropolitan Areas Low-Income Low-Income in Low-Income in Low-Income in % Low- in 50-100% 90-100% 99-100% District Income Multiracial Minority Minority Minority Schools Schools Schools Schools Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 99.5% 99.5% 99.5% 99.5% Stamford 50.1% 50.1% 50.1% Norwalk 47.1% 47.1% 48.5% Danbury 51.3% 46.9% 53.7% Fairfield 9.9% 25.5% Greenwich 14.6% 17.8% 55.5% Stratford 42.8% 42.8% 47.2% Trumbull 8.9% 12.8% Westport 3.8% Ridgefield 2.9% Newtown 6.7% Shelton 20.8% 28.3% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 84.9% 65.8% 84.9% 97.4% 99.1% New Britain 80.9% 80.1% 80.9% 89.0% West 20.0% 26.4% 47.6% Hartford Bristol 36.6% Southington 14.3% East Hartford 61.1% 59.4% 61.1% 71.4% Glastonbury 8.5% 29.4% Manchester 54.6% 54.6% 57.6% Enfield 35.3% 97.1% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 78.5% 75.9% 79.4% 81.6% Waterbury 80.9% 79.8% 82.2% 89.0% Meriden 69.7% 70.4% 69.7% Milford 21.4% Wallingford 17.5% West Haven 51.1% 51.1% 53.0% Hamden 40.0% 43.9% 47.3%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Note: Blank cells represent no schools or other. Minority school represents black, Latino, American Indian, and Asian students. Multiracial schools are those with any three races representing 10% or more of the total student enrollment respectively.
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Table 18: Black and Latino Students in Minority Segregated Schools in Major Districts, 2012- 2013 50-100% Minority 90-100% Minority 99-100% Minority
School School School District Latino Black Latino Black Latino Black Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 100.0% 100.0% 64.7% 61.0% Stamford 100.0% 100.0% Norwalk 94.5% 94.4% Danbury 94.1% 92.0% Fairfield Greenwich 22.2% 21.0% Stratford 66.9% 67.4% Trumbull Westport Ridgefield Newtown Shelton Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 100.0% 100.0% 73.6% 65.4% 7.8% 17.1% New Britain 100.0% 100.0% 5.0% 5.5% West Hartford 16.8% 8.7% Bristol Southington East Hartford 100.0% 100.0% 17.0% 14.3% Glastonbury Manchester 92.2% 94.0% Enfield 5.8% 1.9% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 97.4% 98.6% 56.7% 48.4% Waterbury 98.1% 97.9% 13.3% 16.6% Meriden 100.0% 100.0% Milford Wallingford West Haven 85.7% 85.5% Hamden 88.3% 90.2%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data Note: Blank cells represent no schools or other. Minority school represents black, Latino, American Indian, and Asian students. Multiracial schools are those with any three races representing 10% or more of the total student enrollment respectively.
Intergroup Contact in Connecticut’s Large Districts When we look at individual groups’ exposure to other racial groups, we can better understand students’ experiences of intergroup contact. As Tables 19 to 22 demonstrate, in Connecticut’s large districts, there was a clear pattern that white and Asian students tended to Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 51 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles have more white and Asian classmates and that African American, Latino, and American Indian students tended to attend schools where students from the same groups were enrolled. However, in none of the large districts, did whites attend schools that enrolled over 90% white students, and most whites attended schools with a significant nonwhite majority in 2012. Nonetheless, the exposure pattern shows that many white students in the state’s major districts were in settings where they needed to acquire skills and understandings to function effectively in a society that becomes more multiracial. In addition, the pattern, much more common in the cities of the South and the West, is coming to more parts of Connecticut. Additionally, there was a noticeable difference across the districts examined in terms of racial exposure to each group. Latino students in some districts, in particular, attended school where more than half of their classmates were from the same group (e.g., Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, and Waterbury). For example, Latinos in the Hartford district’ schools had nearly 60% Latino classmates, which limited their intergroup experiences (see Table 21). African American students in some districts were in the same situation where blacks had over 40% of classmates from the same group. For instance, African American students in the New Haven district attended schools where more than half of their classmates were blacks, which was much higher than the overall black share of the district (43%), and a similar pattern was found in other districts, including Bridgeport and Hartford (see Table 20).
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Table 19: White Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 District % White White Asian Black Latino Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 8.8% 14.6% 11.0% 8.4% 8.0% Stamford 34.4% 35.8% 32.5% 34.0% 33.8% Norwalk 36.0% 40.4% 34.8% 34.7% 32.7% Danbury 41.9% 43.9% 42.5% 42.3% 39.7% Fairfield 81.0% 81.6% 78.6% 78.3% 77.6% Greenwich 68.1% 70.6% 68.5% 59.3% 60.0% Stratford 46.9% 47.5% 47.4% 46.4% 46.3% Trumbull 80.4% 80.6% 79.6% 79.5% 79.7% Westport 87.5% 87.6% 87.0% 88.1% 86.6% Ridgefield 87.6% 87.7% 86.9% 87.7% 87.3% Newtown 88.8% 88.8% 88.7% 88.4% 88.8% Shelton 79.8% 80.2% 78.2% 77.7% 78.1% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 11.2% 21.9% 14.2% 10.1% 9.2% New Britain 21.8% 24.3% 25.6% 21.8% 20.8% West Hartford 61.5% 63.9% 58.8% 59.1% 55.8% Bristol 67.7% 68.2% 66.5% 68.0% 66.4% Southington 87.0% 87.1% 86.8% 86.5% 86.7% East Hartford 16.9% 20.0% 17.8% 16.5% 15.9% Glastonbury 78.2% 78.5% 77.5% 77.4% 75.6% Manchester 40.5% 44.4% 36.9% 37.5% 38.3% Enfield 76.8% 77.3% 75.0% 76.6% 74.3% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 14.3% 24.7% 25.8% 12.8% 11.6% Waterbury 22.0% 28.0% 24.0% 20.1% 20.0% Meriden 34.5% 35.7% 34.1% 33.7% 33.8% Milford 81.0% 81.3% 78.8% 80.2% 80.0% Wallingford 78.2% 78.4% 78.2% 77.8% 77.1% West Haven 39.4% 41.4% 40.8% 38.3% 37.4% Hamden 42.9% 48.1% 44.2% 38.3% 36.8%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data.
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Table 20: Black Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 District % Black White Asian Black Latino Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 38.6% 36.5% 38.2% 41.6% 36.7% Stamford 19.7% 19.5% 19.2% 21.1% 19.3% Norwalk 20.0% 19.3% 20.2% 21.0% 20.1% Danbury 8.2% 8.3% 8.5% 8.8% 8.0% Fairfield 2.4% 2.4% 2.7% 3.1% 2.8% Greenwich 3.1% 2.7% 2.9% 4.9% 4.3% Stratford 21.0% 20.8% 20.5% 21.6% 21.1% Trumbull 4.3% 4.3% 4.4% 4.7% 4.5% Westport 1.6% 1.6% 1.5% 1.8% 1.5% Ridgefield 0.6% 0.6% 0.6% 0.8% 0.6% Newtown 1.3% 1.3% 1.4% 1.9% 1.2% Shelton 3.5% 3.4% 3.8% 4.1% 3.8% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 31.6% 28.6% 32.0% 42.3% 25.5% New Britain 14.3% 14.3% 14.3% 15.3% 14.1% West Hartford 8.6% 8.3% 8.8% 9.2% 9.4% Bristol 6.3% 6.3% 6.1% 6.6% 6.2% Southington 1.9% 1.9% 1.8% 2.5% 2.0% East Hartford 34.6% 33.8% 34.1% 35.0% 34.6% Glastonbury 2.7% 2.6% 2.6% 3.0% 2.9% Manchester 22.0% 20.3% 23.0% 23.6% 22.9% Enfield 5.7% 5.7% 5.7% 6.1% 5.8% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 43.3% 38.6% 36.8% 53.0% 34.8% Waterbury 24.7% 22.5% 24.6% 26.1% 25.0% Meriden 11.7% 11.4% 11.1% 12.5% 11.7% Milford 4.6% 4.6% 4.6% 5.2% 4.9% Wallingford 2.4% 2.4% 2.3% 2.9% 2.4% West Haven 21.8% 21.2% 21.4% 22.6% 22.1% Hamden 30.1% 26.9% 27.5% 33.8% 33.4%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data.
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Table 21: Latino Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 District % Latino White Asian Black Latino Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 48.8% 44.2% 45.5% 46.3% 51.8% Stamford 36.4% 35.7% 36.6% 35.6% 37.2% Norwalk 37.7% 34.3% 38.0% 38.0% 40.7% Danbury 40.2% 38.1% 38.8% 39.1% 42.8% Fairfield 8.4% 8.1% 9.7% 9.7% 10.4% Greenwich 17.8% 15.6% 16.2% 25.1% 25.3% Stratford 26.3% 26.0% 25.9% 26.4% 26.9% Trumbull 7.9% 7.8% 8.0% 8.3% 8.3% Westport 4.0% 4.0% 4.2% 3.8% 4.5% Ridgefield 5.0% 5.0% 5.0% 5.0% 5.3% Newtown 4.9% 4.9% 4.8% 4.6% 5.0% Shelton 9.6% 9.4% 10.1% 10.5% 10.6% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 50.0% 41.0% 43.2% 40.3% 58.8% New Britain 59.6% 56.7% 54.5% 58.6% 61.1% West Hartford 15.4% 14.0% 16.7% 17.0% 19.3% Bristol 20.0% 19.6% 20.3% 19.7% 21.0% Southington 5.3% 5.3% 5.4% 5.4% 5.6% East Hartford 42.1% 39.6% 40.1% 42.1% 43.3% Glastonbury 6.9% 6.7% 7.1% 7.6% 8.6% Manchester 24.5% 23.2% 24.2% 25.6% 25.9% Enfield 10.1% 9.8% 11.0% 10.2% 11.8% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 39.5% 31.9% 27.6% 31.7% 51.6% Waterbury 48.2% 43.8% 45.9% 48.8% 50.1% Meriden 48.1% 47.2% 48.7% 48.3% 48.7% Milford 5.9% 5.8% 5.8% 6.2% 6.7% Wallingford 14.1% 13.9% 14.0% 14.0% 15.2% West Haven 31.5% 29.9% 30.2% 31.9% 33.3% Hamden 16.5% 14.2% 15.6% 18.3% 19.8%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data.
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Table 22: Asian Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 District % Asian White Asian Black Latino Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 3.0% 3.7% 4.3% 2.9% 2.8% Stamford 8.5% 8.0% 10.5% 8.2% 8.5% Norwalk 5.1% 4.9% 5.7% 5.2% 5.1% Danbury 7.7% 7.9% 8.3% 8.0% 7.5% Fairfield 5.4% 5.3% 6.2% 6.0% 6.2% Greenwich 8.1% 8.1% 9.1% 7.7% 7.4% Stratford 3.1% 3.1% 3.3% 3.0% 3.0% Trumbull 6.9% 6.9% 7.5% 7.1% 7.0% Westport 5.2% 5.1% 5.4% 5.2% 5.4% Ridgefield 5.1% 5.1% 5.7% 5.1% 5.1% Newtown 3.6% 3.6% 3.7% 3.8% 3.5% Shelton 6.2% 6.1% 6.8% 6.6% 6.5% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 3.1% 3.9% 6.5% 3.1% 2.6% New Britain 2.6% 3.0% 3.8% 2.5% 2.3% West Hartford 11.2% 10.8% 12.4% 11.5% 12.1% Bristol 3.1% 3.1% 3.9% 3.0% 3.2% Southington 3.0% 3.0% 3.4% 2.8% 3.1% East Hartford 5.5% 5.8% 7.1% 5.4% 5.2% Glastonbury 8.8% 8.8% 9.2% 8.6% 9.2% Manchester 8.3% 7.6% 11.2% 8.7% 8.2% Enfield 2.4% 2.3% 2.9% 2.4% 2.6% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 2.3% 4.2% 9.0% 2.0% 1.6% Waterbury 1.8% 2.0% 2.1% 1.8% 1.7% Meriden 3.5% 3.5% 4.0% 3.3% 3.5% Milford 8.3% 8.1% 10.6% 8.2% 8.2% Wallingford 4.9% 4.9% 5.0% 4.8% 4.8% West Haven 3.5% 3.6% 3.7% 3.4% 3.3% Hamden 7.5% 7.8% 10.0% 6.9% 7.1%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data.
One way to look at segregation in a society with multiple racial and ethnic groups is to look at the contact between the two more privileged and educationally successful groups, whites and Asians, and the three more disadvantaged and educationally less successful groups, Latinos, African Americans and American Indians. This is a rough approximation—of course there are disadvantaged Asian and white students and affluent successful black and Latino families—but it a useful starting point in this analysis. As Table 23 shows, Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven had combined white and Asian students between 11.8% and 16.6%, on average, and the figures were by far the lowest among the state’s large districts. In the three districts, the average proportion of white and Asian students in schools attended by the typical student from combined blacks, Latinos, and American Indians was close to the district averages (see Table 23). For Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 56 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles example, the Bridgeport district had 11.8% white and Asian students, and the typical students from combined black, Latino, and American Indian group attended a school where 11% combined white and Asian students were enrolled. This may indicate that the districts were not concentrating white and Asian students in special privileged schools but, to the contrary, the schools of the black, Latino, and American Indian students had white and Asian enrollment quite close to the district average in the great majority of districts. Furthermore, when we look at the proportion of black, Latino, and American Indian students in schools attended by the typical student from combined whites and Asians, there was a similar pattern. The average share of white and Asian students in schools attended by the typical black, Latino, and American Indian student was very similar to the district’s overall percentage of white and Asian enrollment. Nevertheless, there were a couple of districts (e.g., Hartford and New Haven), in which the overall black, Latino, and American Indian proportion in schools attended by the typical white and Asian student was considerably lower than the overall black, Latino, and American Indian share of the districts. For instance, the New Haven district had 83% combined black, Latino, and American Indian students, but the typical white and Asian student attended schools where 70% of their classmates were from the black, Latino, and American Indian group (see Table 24). Considering exposure rates of Connecticut’s large districts, there were extremely different levels of racial contact within different school districts in the state. However, the problem did not seem to be caused by segregation within school districts, but it seemed to be the result of the varying racial composition of individual districts. In other words, segregation in the state tends to be caused by segregation among districts, not within districts, and this is exactly what the Connecticut Supreme Court recognized in its initial decision in Sheff v. O’Neill, finding that the district boundaries were a fundamental cause of the school segregation and a primary barrier to a remedy without state policies making it possible for students to cross those lines.
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Table 23: White/Asian Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 % White/ Black/ District White Asian Black Latino White/Asian Asian Latino/AI Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 11.8% 18.3% 15.3% 17.5% 11.3% 10.8% 11.0% Stamford 42.9% 43.8% 42.9% 43.6% 42.3% 42.3% 42.3% Norwalk 41.1% 45.3% 40.6% 44.7% 39.8% 37.9% 38.5% Danbury 49.6% 51.8% 50.8% 51.6% 50.2% 47.1% 47.7% Fairfield 86.4% 86.9% 84.8% 86.8% 84.2% 83.9% 84.0% Greenwich 76.2% 78.8% 77.6% 78.6% 67.0% 67.4% 67.4% Stratford 50.0% 50.6% 50.8% 50.6% 49.4% 49.3% 49.4% Trumbull 87.3% 87.4% 87.1% 87.4% 86.6% 86.7% 86.7% Westport 92.7% 92.8% 92.4% 92.8% 93.3% 92.0% 92.4% Ridgefield 92.7% 92.7% 92.6% 92.7% 92.8% 92.4% 92.4% Newtown 92.4% 92.4% 92.4% 92.4% 92.3% 92.3% 92.3% Shelton 86.0% 86.3% 85.0% 86.2% 84.4% 84.6% 84.6% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 14.3% 25.8% 20.7% 24.7% 13.2% 11.8% 12.4% New Britain 24.4% 27.3% 29.4% 27.5% 24.3% 23.1% 23.4% West Hartford 72.8% 74.6% 71.2% 74.1% 70.6% 68.0% 68.9% Bristol 70.8% 71.3% 70.4% 71.3% 71.0% 69.6% 69.9% Southington 90.1% 90.1% 90.2% 90.1% 89.3% 89.8% 89.6% East Hartford 22.4% 25.8% 24.8% 25.6% 21.9% 21.1% 21.4% Glastonbury 87.0% 87.3% 86.7% 87.2% 86.1% 84.7% 85.2% Manchester 48.8% 52.0% 48.1% 51.3% 46.2% 46.5% 46.4% Enfield 79.2% 79.7% 77.9% 79.6% 78.9% 77.0% 77.7% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 16.6% 28.8% 34.9% 29.7% 14.7% 13.2% 14.0% Waterbury 23.8% 30.0% 26.1% 29.7% 21.9% 21.7% 21.8% Meriden 38.0% 39.2% 38.1% 39.1% 37.0% 37.3% 37.3% Milford 89.3% 89.4% 89.4% 89.4% 88.4% 88.2% 88.3% Wallingford 83.0% 83.3% 83.2% 83.2% 82.6% 81.9% 82.0% West Haven 42.8% 45.0% 44.5% 44.9% 41.7% 40.7% 41.1% Hamden 50.4% 55.9% 54.2% 55.6% 45.1% 43.9% 44.7%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data. Note: AI=American Indian
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Table 24: Black/Latino/AI Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 % Black/ White/ Black/ District White Asian Black Latino Latino/AI Asian Latino/AI Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 87.9% 81.4% 84.4% 82.2% 88.4% 89.0% 88.7% Stamford 56.1% 55.3% 55.9% 55.4% 56.8% 56.6% 56.7% Norwalk 57.8% 53.7% 58.3% 54.3% 59.1% 60.9% 60.3% Danbury 48.5% 46.5% 47.3% 46.6% 48.0% 50.8% 50.4% Fairfield 11.0% 10.6% 12.5% 10.7% 13.0% 13.3% 13.2% Greenwich 21.0% 18.5% 19.3% 18.5% 30.1% 29.8% 29.8% Stratford 47.6% 47.0% 46.6% 46.9% 48.2% 48.2% 48.2% Trumbull 12.4% 12.3% 12.6% 12.3% 13.1% 13.0% 13.1% Westport 5.7% 5.6% 5.9% 5.6% 5.7% 6.0% 5.9% Ridgefield 5.7% 5.7% 5.6% 5.7% 5.8% 5.9% 5.9% Newtown 6.3% 6.2% 6.3% 6.2% 6.5% 6.3% 6.3% Shelton 13.3% 13.0% 14.1% 13.1% 14.8% 14.6% 14.6% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 82.0% 70.1% 75.6% 71.2% 82.9% 84.7% 84.0% New Britain 74.0% 71.1% 68.9% 70.9% 74.1% 75.4% 75.1% West Hartford 24.3% 22.5% 25.7% 23.0% 26.4% 29.0% 28.1% Bristol 26.5% 26.1% 26.6% 26.1% 26.5% 27.5% 27.2% Southington 7.4% 7.4% 7.4% 7.4% 8.1% 7.7% 7.8% East Hartford 77.0% 73.7% 74.6% 73.9% 77.5% 78.3% 77.9% Glastonbury 9.7% 9.5% 9.9% 9.5% 10.7% 11.6% 11.3% Manchester 46.9% 43.9% 47.6% 44.5% 49.6% 49.1% 49.3% Enfield 16.2% 15.9% 17.2% 15.9% 16.7% 17.9% 17.5% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 83.0% 70.7% 64.6% 69.9% 84.8% 86.5% 85.6% Waterbury 73.3% 66.8% 70.9% 67.1% 75.3% 75.5% 75.5% Meriden 60.3% 59.1% 60.3% 59.2% 61.2% 60.9% 60.9% Milford 10.6% 10.5% 10.5% 10.5% 11.5% 11.7% 11.6% Wallingford 16.7% 16.4% 16.5% 16.4% 17.1% 17.8% 17.7% West Haven 53.5% 51.4% 51.8% 51.4% 54.7% 55.6% 55.2% Hamden 46.8% 41.2% 43.2% 41.5% 52.2% 53.3% 52.6%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data. Note: AI=American Indian
Poverty Concentration in Connecticut’s Large Districts With respect to poverty concentration in Connecticut’s large districts, the degree to which students attended schools of concentrated poverty was determined far more by the poverty level of the school district than the race of the student. As Table 25 indicates, the level of absolute poverty was the most astonishing in the Bridgeport district where virtually all students were poor and were blacks and Latinos. In the district, almost all classmates in schools attended by every racial group were from low-income families, and the district’s students were very unlikely to have contact with any students from middle-class families. The next poorest district was Hartford where 85% of the students were from low-income families. In the same district, however, there Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 59 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles was an overwhelming difference. For instance, the typical white student attended a school where less than 70% of their classmate were poor, while the typical Latino student had, on average, 91% classmates living in poverty. New Britain, Waterbury, New Haven, and Meriden districts had extremely high levels of poverty, between 70% and 81%. In contrast, we see the other extreme, such as Ridgefield, Westport, and Newtown in which poverty levels were between 2.9% and 6.7% (see Table 25). In these districts, students from any racial group were likely to be in a school with an overwhelming majority of classmates from middle- and upper-class families and neighborhoods. The difference in terms of poverty levels across racial groups and among districts matters because students have different experiences, opportunities, and resources of any kind that related to education in their homes and neighborhoods. Major Accomplishments of the Sheff Remedies Twenty-three years after the Connecticut Supreme Court ordered the development of a remedy for the harmful segregation that violated the rights of the black and Latino students of Hartford, Connecticut has demonstrated the value of some approaches which not only cross over the boundaries that separate children by race and poverty but also provide very attractive educational alternatives for all children that never existed before in the state. Integration, Connecticut has clearly shown, is not a zero-sum game, it can be a positive-sum game in which all groups of children and communities can gain opportunities and experiences that would not otherwise exist. In all likelihood the fact that there have been significant declines in the level of intense segregation under the remedy is related to the new efforts, since this pattern has not been observed in other bordering New England states.
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Table 25: Low-Income Students Students Attended by the Typical Student of Each Race in Major Districts, 2012-2013 % White/ Black/ District White Asian Black Latino Low-Income Asian Latino/AI Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT Bridgeport 99.5% 99.5% 99.6% 99.5% 99.5% 99.5% 99.5% Stamford 50.1% 49.2% 50.0% 49.3% 50.4% 50.7% 50.6% Norwalk 47.1% 43.4% 47.7% 43.9% 47.8% 50.1% 49.3% Danbury 51.3% 48.4% 50.0% 48.7% 50.5% 54.5% 53.8% Fairfield 9.9% 9.4% 11.7% 9.5% 12.5% 12.5% 12.5% Greenwich 14.6% 12.0% 12.8% 12.1% 24.9% 24.0% 24.1% Stratford 42.8% 42.1% 42.1% 42.1% 43.3% 44.0% 43.7% Trumbull 8.9% 8.8% 8.9% 8.9% 9.4% 8.9% 9.1% Westport 3.8% 3.8% 3.8% 3.8% 4.0% 3.8% 3.9% Ridgefield 2.9% 2.9% 2.7% 2.9% 2.9% 2.9% 2.9% Newtown 6.7% 6.7% 6.7% 6.7% 7.0% 6.6% 6.7% Shelton 20.8% 20.5% 21.4% 20.5% 23.0% 22.4% 22.5% Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Hartford 84.9% 68.8% 74.6% 70.0% 82.2% 90.9% 87.5% New Britain 80.9% 79.1% 78.9% 79.1% 80.8% 81.7% 81.5% West Hartford 20.0% 18.1% 21.8% 18.7% 22.3% 25.2% 24.1% Bristol 36.6% 36.3% 36.7% 36.3% 36.9% 37.5% 37.4% Southington 14.3% 14.3% 13.9% 14.2% 14.8% 14.5% 14.5% East Hartford 61.1% 57.0% 58.2% 57.2% 61.6% 62.7% 62.2% Glastonbury 8.5% 8.1% 8.9% 8.2% 9.9% 11.4% 10.9% Manchester 54.6% 51.3% 54.0% 51.7% 57.6% 57.5% 57.5% Enfield 35.3% 34.5% 37.0% 34.6% 35.7% 39.5% 38.1% New Haven-Milford, CT New Haven 78.5% 74.5% 69.9% 73.8% 78.5% 80.6% 79.5% Waterbury 80.9% 74.5% 78.3% 74.8% 82.4% 83.4% 83.1% Meriden 69.7% 68.3% 70.3% 68.5% 70.4% 70.4% 70.4% Milford 21.4% 21.3% 20.4% 21.2% 22.8% 23.2% 23.1% Wallingford 17.5% 17.3% 17.0% 17.2% 18.7% 18.5% 18.5% West Haven 51.1% 49.1% 50.0% 49.1% 51.3% 53.6% 52.6% Hamden 40.0% 33.9% 37.5% 34.5% 45.4% 47.0% 45.9%
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data. Note: AI=American Indian
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Conclusion and Recommendations71
This report shows that there is serious segregation of both black and Latino students in Connecticut schools which has been addressed partially by the plans created in response to the state supreme court’s l996 ruling and subsequent efforts to strengthen and expand remedies. Those changes have significantly reduced extreme segregation and opened opportunities for thousands of students of all races to have positive experiences in diverse schools. In spite of these gains, however, serious segregation remains and will affect more students as the enrollment of students of color grows. The central needs are to scale up the existing plans, create a much more robust and well supported plan for voluntary interdistrict transfers, and prevent transfers that actually increase racial and ethnic separation. Since segregation is spreading at a substantial level in some of the state’s suburban communities, it is very important that communities and school districts work together with the support of the state government and private institutions develop plans to foster stable lasting diversity and to avoid discriminatory housing marketing and other forces that produce resegregation. Regional school and housing diversity policies can be vital parts of these solutions. The extreme divergence in Connecticut’s test scores by race and poverty, which education reformers have repeatedly noted, requires more attention both to the evidence of educational success in diverse schools and to the severe problems of remaining segregated education State Level Most states have provided very little leadership to combat spreading segregation in recent decades. Thanks to the Sheff decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court, and earlier litigation on school finance, Connecticut has produced some important experiments and produced alternatives that could be considerably expanded. Connecticut should considerably expand the magnet school effort, expand the interdistrict choice program, and develop civil rights standards for all school choices options, especially including charter schools. Those standards should include 1) a goal and a plan for diversity, 2) a priority for transfer from neighborhoods with high nonwhite populations, 3) provision of excellent parent information counseling for choice options and recruitment for those that fail to open integrated, 4) a goal of using desirable choice options to help stabilize racially diverse communities threatened by resegregation 5) a prohibition on screening for entrance into schools of choice; 6)free transportation to schools of choice The state should lift the cap on magnet schools. Charters should come under the state’s diversity policies and requirements and should have goals, recruitment strategies, public information and transportation policies to foster diversity including diversity of language background. The open enrollment program should be strongly focused on fostering diversity, should not pay for transfers from one segregated school to another, and should include resegregated suburbs as sending areas. The focus should be on opening opportunities for more students segregated by race and poverty to go to stronger schools with more white and Asian students---schools with higher achievement levels, and better ratings from the state department
71 This section is adapted from Orfield, G., Kuscera, J., & Siegel-Hawley, G. (2012). E pluribus … separation? Deepening double segregation for more students. Los Angeles, CA: The Civil Rights Project. Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 62 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles of education. Since the choice programs tend to seriously underserve EL and Special education students, the state should clarify the requirement of federal civil rights law that all public schools serve both groups of students and ask for plans from receiving schools to accomplish this goal. Ohio devised a policy that could be used in Connecticut. It applies to both regular public schools and charter schools and provides guidance to school districts concerning the development of student assignment plans that foster diverse schools and reduce concentrated poverty. Ohio's policy encourages inter-district transfer programs and regional magnet schools, promotes the recruitment of a diverse group of teachers and also requires districts to report to the Ohio State Superintendent of Public Instruction on diversity-related matters. Connecticut is doing some of these things under court order but it would be more powerful if there was serious multidimensional leadership from the state department of education and support from top elected officials and members of the legislature. Given the growing levels of within-district segregation in the state/s metros, state housing agencies and state and local officials need to work together to coordinate new school construction and affordable housing development. Housing tax credits should not be awarded for family housing that places more impoverished students in low achieving high poverty schools. Fair housing and state and local officials need to regularly audit discrimination in housing markets, particularly in and around areas with diverse school districts and bring significant prosecutions for violations. Housing officials need to strengthen and enforce site selection policies for projects receiving federal direct funding or tax credit subsidies so that they support integrated schools rather than foster segregation. There should be particular sanctions against steering families away from schools that are integrated or predominantly minority. Because state test scores and ratings of schools by state authorities become a basic way of channeling housing demand from parents with resources, the state and local districts should supplement the existing data with data showing how much students learn in a year on average to give a rough indicator of academic growth, which is the fundamental question for parents. The substantial size and continuing growth of the state’s share of students from non- English speaking homes provides an opportunity for mutually beneficial educational options that foster true fluency in two languages as well as a positive experience of integration, an experience that honors the skill of both groups of students in a voluntary dual immersion program in which both English-speakers and Spanish speakers learn in both languages in classes with fluent native speakers of the other language. While there are limits on assignments to schools based on race of individual students there are no limits on using language very directly in integrating schools. Since growth in school population is driven by Latinos and Asians the state has a growing supply of children fluent in a second language who could contribute to such schools. Though charter schools remain limited, state and local officials should work to promote diversity in charter school enrollments, in part by encouraging extensive outreach to diverse communities, inter-district enrollment, and the provision of free transportation. Officials should also consider pursuing litigation against charter schools that are receiving public funds but are intentionally segregated, serving only one racial or ethnic group, or refusing service to English language learners. They should investigate charter schools that are virtually all white in diverse areas or schools that provide no free lunch program, making it impossible to serve students who need these subsidies in order to eat and therefore excluding a large share of nonwhite students. To make charter operators increasingly cognizant of their civil rights responsibilities under state Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, April 2015 63 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles and federal law, the state officials need to examine statistics, investigate patterns of apparent segregation or exclusion, and take enforcement actions when there is not a serious remedy. There is considerable discussion in Connecticut of the possibility of focusing diversity policy on class rather than race, though the Supreme Court decision rejected the plaintiff’s effort to obtain relief on both dimensions and focused squarely on race. There are, of course, important reasons to think about the relationship between family poverty and the concentrated persistent poverty of some neighborhoods and educational inequality. But it is also important to remember that race and class are different things, both of which are important. Poverty is a condition that is usually temporary, especially for whites and which may or may not be intensified by living in a concentrated poverty neighborhood, which is much more likely for poor blacks and Latinos than for poor whites. Race, on the other hand, is something that is permanent, attaches directly to appearance for many, and which carries strong negative meanings and engenders strong prejudices in American society. As the statistics in the report make clear, black and Latino students on average attend schools with much higher shares of poor children than do whites and Asians, but there are very significant numbers of blacks and Latinos who are not poor in Connecticut and would not receive any options for integration under a class only policy. An important fact for the future of racial diversity is that there is powerful evidence, dating back a half century, that whites in diverse communities are likely to leave, increasing racial segregation, under a unrestrictive choice policy that does not have integration goals and mechanisms. This would, of course, make interracial communities and schools less stable and more likely to resegregate. It would be very unfortunate to adopt a civil rights remedy that intensified the segregation the remedy was required to address. There have been major changes in enrollments since the present plans were designed and the state authorities need additional authority to foster suburban participation and identify good transfer opportunities in strong school districts with declining enrollments, a precious resource. Because the state is in a major demographic transformation and part way through a desegregation process the possibility of reducing segregation by race and poverty needs to be an important part of general educational policy decisions. Local Level At the local level, raising awareness is an essential step in preventing further resegregation and encouraging integrated schooling. Civil rights organizations and community organizations in nonwhite communities should study the existing trends and observe and participate in political and community processes and action related to boundary changes, school siting decisions, and other key policies that make schools more segregated or more integrated. Local communities and fair housing organizations must monitor their real estate market to ensure that potential home buyers are not being steered away from areas with diverse schools. Community institutions and churches need to facilitate conversations about the values of diverse education and help raise community awareness about its benefits. Local journalists should cover the relationships between segregation and unequal educational outcomes and realities, in addition to providing coverage of high quality, diverse schools. Although the Connecticut Racial Imbalance Act has little relevance to the large central cities it is still directly relevant to suburbs with moderate levels of diversity and should be observed by local school districts.
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Local educational organizations and neighborhood associations should vigorously promote diverse communities and schools as highly desirable places to live and learn. Communities need to provide consistent and vocal support for promoting school diversity and recognize the power of local school boards to either advocate for integration or work against it. Efforts should be made to foster the development of suburban coalitions to influence state-level policy-making around issues of school diversity and equity. Business leaders and the educational reform groups they support should directly confront the obvious racial dimensions of the state’s massive educational gaps and propose and support effective voluntary effort5s to ameliorate them. School district policy-makers also have control over student assignment policies and thus can directly influence the levels of diversity within each school. Districts should develop policies that consider race among other factors in creating diverse schools. Magnet schools and transfer programs within district borders can also be used to promote more racially integrated schools. The enforcement of laws guiding school segregation is essential. Many suburban districts never had a desegregation order because they were virtually all white during the civil rights era. However, many of them are now diverse and may be engaged in classic abuses of racial gerrymandering of attendance boundaries, school site selection that intensifies segregation and choice plans, or operating choice plans with methods and policies that undermine integration and foster segregation. Where such violations exist, local organizations and parents should ask the school board to address and correct them. If there is no positive response they should register complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice or the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education.
Educational Organizations and Universities Professional associations, teachers’ organizations, and colleges of education need to make educators and communities fully aware of the nature and costs of existing segregation. Foundations should fund research dedicated to exploring the continued harms of segregation and the benefits of integration. Researchers and advocates need to analyze and publicize the racial patterns and practices of public charter schools. Nonprofits and foundations funding charter schools should not incentivize the development of racially and economically isolated programs but instead they should support civil rights and academic institutions working on these issues. Institutions of higher education can also influence the development of more diverse K-12 schools by informing students and families that their institutions are diverse and that students who have not been in diverse K-12 educational settings might be unprepared for the experiences they will encounter at such institutions of higher education. Admission staffs of colleges and universities should also consider the skills and experiences that students from diverse high schools will bring to their campuses when reviewing college applications and making admissions decisions. Private and public civil rights organizations should also contribute to enforcing laws. They need to create a serious strategy to enforce the rights of Latino students in districts where they have never been recognized and serious inequalities exist.
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The Courts The Connecticut Supreme Court clearly and forcefully recognized that segregation and inequality is built into the system of school districts in the state but it has not yet insisted on a remedy that is in any way proportional to the problem. The Supreme Court and the lower courts that continue to supervise existing court orders and consent decrees should monitor them for full compliance before dissolving the plan or order and consider what additional remedies are needed.
Federal Level At the federal level, our country needs leadership that expresses the value of diverse learning environments and encourages local action to achieve school desegregation. The federal government should establish a joint planning process between the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to review programs and regulations that will result in successful, lasting community and school integration. Federal equity centers should provide effective desegregation planning, which was their original goal when they were created under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Federal choice policies should include civil rights standards. Without such requirements, choice policies, particularly those guiding charter schools, often foster increased racial segregation. Federal policy should also recognize and support the need for school districts to diversify their teaching staff. The federal government should provide assistance to districts in preparing their own paraprofessionals, who tend to represent a more diverse group, to become teachers. In Connecticut planning of the use of federal aid should be linked to helping the state comply with the demands of the state constitution. Building on the Obama administration’s grant program for Technical Assistance for Student Assignment Plans, a renewed program of voluntary assistance for integration should be enacted. This program should add a focus on diversifying suburbs and gentrifying urban neighborhoods and provide funding for preparing effective student assignment plans, reviewing magnet plans, implementing summer catch-up programs for students transferring from weaker to stronger schools, supporting partnerships with universities, and reaching out to diverse groups of parents. As an important funding source for educational research, the federal government should support a research agenda that focuses on trends of racial change and resegregation, causes and effects of resegregation, the value of alternative approaches to achieving integration and closing gaps in student achievement, and creating housing and school conditions that support stable neighborhood integration. The Justice Department and the Office for Civil Rights need to take enforcement actions in some substantial school districts to revive a credible sanction in federal policy for actions that foster segregation or ignore responsibilities under desegregation plans.
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Concluding Thoughts
Like the rest of New England, Connecticut is experiencing serious racial change much later than many parts of the country, but it is clearly now well under way. Connecticut does, however, have serious problems of segregation by race and poverty, particularly in its central cities. Although the state had early positive policies and experiments, particularly in the Hartford area, it had largely abandoned the effort to do anything serious about this growing problem until the state supreme court ordered the development of a plan in l996. There is now enough experience under that plan to know that there are potential positive solutions that could contribute significantly to a different future for the state. There is significant evidence that these plans contribute to both lowering segregation and improving education and that they can produce schooling opportunities that were not previously available and are in demand from families of all races. Connecticut should give a very high priority to expanding these excellent educational options.
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Appendix: Segregation Statistics
Exposure rates
In this report we used exposure statistics to measure segregation and to capture the experiences of segregation. Exposure of certain racial groups to one another or to majority groups shows the distribution of racial groups among organizational units – districts in this report – and describes the average contact between different groups. It is calculated by employing the percentage of a particular group of students of interest in a small unit (e.g., school) with a certain group of students in a larger geographic or organizational unit (e.g., district, county, or state). The formula for calculating the exposure rates of a student in racial group A to students in racial group B is:
where n is the number of small units (e.g., school) in a larger unit (e.g., district) ai is the number of student in racial group A in the small unit i (school i) A is the total number of students in racial group A in the larger unit (district) bi is the number of students in racial group B in the small unit i (school i) ti is the total number of students in all racial groups in the small unit i (school i) Exposure rates files for all districts in Connecticut
Our report contains exposure statistics for large districts in Connecticut, but given the length of the report, we did not offer exposure rates for all districts. Instead, our supplementary documents include exposure statistics for all districts in Connecticut for the 2012-2013 School Year. We also focus on the following exposure statistics to reveal segregation by race and ethnicity and by poverty:
1. Racial group exposure to white students by the typical student in school districts 2. Racial group exposure to African American students by the typical student in school districts 3. Racial group exposure to Hispanic students by the typical student in school districts 4. Racial group exposure to Asian students by the typical student in school districts 5. Racial group exposure to African American, Latino, and American Indian students by typical student in school districts 6. Racial group exposure to white and Asian students by typical student in school districts 7. Racial group exposure to low-income students by typical student in school districts
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How to read tables?
To illustrate, let’s look at the table of racial group exposure to low-income students by the typical student of each racial group. The table below indicates that the typical white student attends a school with 47.7% low-income students in the ABC School District, whereas the typical Latino student is in contact with 65.8% low-income students in school in the same district.
Example: Racial Group Exposure to Low-Income Students by Typical Student in School Districts District Total Enrollment White Asian White/Asian Black Latino Black/Latino/AI ABC SD 20,845 47.7% 36.5% 38.3% 53.5% 65.8% 63.6%
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